Angiotensin-converting enzyme gene polymorphism is associated with anemia in non small-cell lung cancer.

The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) plays an important role not only in the regulation of vascular homeostasis but also in stimulation of hematopoiesis. We aimed to evaluate the association between insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the ACE gene and anemia at the time of the diagnosis. We enrolled 75 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 85 age- and sex-matched healthy control participants. The I/D polymorphism of ACE was identified by using polymerase chain reaction from peripheral blood samples. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS for Windows. The distributions of the ACE genotypes and alleles are similar in patients and in healthy participants (P=0.29 and P=0.08, respectively). In patients with NSCLC, 34 (45.3%) had anemia; of whom 3 (8.8%) had genotype II, 24 (70.6%) had genotype ID, and 7 (20.6%) had genotype DD (P=0.001). The patients with the II and ID genotypes had more frequent anemia at the time of the diagnosis (odds ratio = 6.02; P=0.001). Our findings suggest that I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene may influence the development of anemia in patients with NSCLC.