Interleukin-2 receptor beta gene C627T polymorphism in Korean women with endometriosis: a case-control study.

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential association of the C627T polymorphism in the interleukin-2 receptor beta gene (IL-2R beta) with the risk of endometriosis in Korean women.

Methods: Two hundred and thirty-seven women with surgically or histologically diagnosed endometriosis of stages III and IV were recruited for this study, and 164 patients with no evidence of endometriosis diagnosed by laparoscopy or laparotomy served as controls. The C627T polymorphism of the IL-2R beta was assessed using the TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. Chi2 analysis was used to examine any differences in genotype distributions and allele frequencies of the IL-2R beta C627T polymorphism between the endometriosis cases and the controls.

Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of the IL-2R beta C627T polymorphism between the endometriosis patients and the controls (28.7% C/C, 48.1% C/T and 23.2% T/T versus 29.3, 44.5 and 26.2%, respectively, P = 0.72) or in the T allele frequencies (47.3 versus 48.5%, respectively, P = 0.73). Even when the endometriosis cases were subdivided into stages III and IV, no statistically significant differences in genotype distributions or allele frequencies were observed among the three groups.

Conclusions: Contrary to the recent data reported in a Taiwanese population, our results suggest that the C627T polymorphism of the IL-2R beta gene may not be associated with the risk of endometriosis in the Korean population.