Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access published online on November 3, 2009
Alcohol and Alcoholism, doi:10.1093/alcalc/agp078
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Polymorphisms in Alcohol Metabolizing Genes and the Risk of Head and Neck Cancer in a Brazilian Population
1 Department of Legal Medicine, Bioethics and Occupational Health, School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil
2 Service of Head and Neck Surgery, Heliópolis Hospital, São Paulo, Brazil
* Corresponding author: Departamento de Medicina Legal, Ética Médica e Medicina Social e do Trabalho, Faculdade de Medicina - USP, Rua Teodoro Sampaio, 115-CEP:05405-000, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Tel./Fax: +55-11-3061-7291; E-mail: gfgattas{at}usp.br
Received 16 May 2009; first review notified 24 July 2009; in revised form 22 September 2009; accepted 2 October 2009
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Abstract |
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Aims: The incidence of head and neck cancer (HNC) in Brazil has increased substantially in recent years. This increase is likely to be strongly associated with alcohol and tobacco consumption, but genetic susceptibility also should be investigated in this population. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of polymorphisms in genes of alcohol metabolism enzymes and the risk of HNC. Methods: A hospital-based case–control study was conducted in São Paulo, Brazil. We here investigated ADH1C Ile350Val, ADH1B Arg48His, ADH1B Arg370Cys and CYP2E1*5A PstI polymorphisms by PCR-RFLP Polymerase Chain Reaction - Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism in 207 histopathologically confirmed HNC cases (184 males and 23 females) and 244 cancer-free controls (225 males and 19 females) admitted as in-patients in the same hospital. Results: Chronic alcohol intake increased approximately four times the risk of HNC. The mutant genotype ADH1B Arg48His was more frequent in controls (12.7%) than HNC patients (5.8%) conferring protection for the disease (odds ratio (OR) = 0.42; 95% confidence interval (CI ), 0.21–0.85). Similar results were observed for individuals with ADH1B*2 (OR = 0.41; 95% CI , 0.20–0.82) or ADH1B*2/ADH1C*1 (OR = 0.32; 95% CI , 0.13–0.79) mutated haplotypes. Multiple regression analyses showed that individuals with the mutant genotype ADH1B Arg48His who consume alcohol >30 g/L/day have more than four times the risk for HNC (OR = 4.42; 95% CI, 1.21–16.11). Conclusions: The fast alcohol metabolizing genotypes may prevent HNC when the amount of alcohol intake is <30.655 g/L/day.