Risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma and polymorphisms within the susceptibility cancer region 8q24.

Background: Genome-wide association studies have shown that the 8q24 region harbours multiple independent cancer susceptibility loci and it was also defined as the "susceptibility cancer region." Thus, it could be hypothesized that genetic variants within this region could play a role in the risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC).

Methods: Six single-nucleotide polymorphisms within 8q24 were analyzed, previously associated with the risk of cancer (i.

Evidences that the polymorphism Pro-282-Ala within the tumor suppressor gene WWOX is a new risk factor for differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

We report a hypothesis-driven study aimed to detect genetic markers of susceptibility to differentiated thyroid carcinomas (DTC). A large number of candidate genes were first selected through literature search (genome-wide studies were also included). To restrict the analysis to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with a high likelihood to be associated with increased risk, each SNP must comply with several a priori hypotheses.