Genetic polymorphisms in head and neck cancer risk.

Objective: To assess whether genetic polymorphisms implicated as risk factors for other tobacco-associated malignancies are associated with altered risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Design: Case-control study.

Subjects: One hundred sixty patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma recruited from a university-based head and neck oncology clinic and 149 population-based controls.

Methods: Genotyping of the CYP1A1 (Ile462Val), GSTM1 (null), GSTP1 (Ile105Val), GSTT1 (null), and P53 (Arg72Pro) genes was performed by polymerase chain reaction-based techniques on DNA prepared from peripheral blood. In addition, a questionnaire was used to collect demographic information from each subject.

Results: Cases were significantly older (p <.0001) and had significantly greater tobacco use (p <.0001) and were more likely to be male (p <.0001) than were control subjects, thus confirming known risk factors for this disease. When cases and controls were compared by simple chi-square analysis, only the frequency of CYP1A1 (Ile462Val) polymorphism was significantly different between cases and controls (OR =.42; 95% CI =.18-.99; p <.04). However, with a logistic regression model to control for known risk factors, we were unable to demonstrate a significant association with head and neck cancer for any of the polymorphisms tested, including CYP1A1.

Conclusions: This population fails to identify a relationship between the above-mentioned polymorphisms and head and neck cancer.