Multi-drug resistance 1 genetic polymorphism and prediction of chemotherapy response in Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Background: The human multi-drug resistance gene (MDR1), which encodes the major trans-membrane transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), was found to be associated with susceptibility to cancer and response to chemotherapy. The C3435T Polymorphism of MDR1 gene was correlated with expression levels and functions of P-gp. Here, we studied the association between MDR1 C3435T polymorphism and susceptibility to Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and patient's response to ABVD chemotherapy regimen.

Methods: a total of 130 paraffin embedded tissue samples collected from HL patients were analyzed to identify the C3435T polymorphism. As a control group, 120 healthy subjects were enrolled in the study. The C3435T Polymorphism was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical package SPSS version 17 to compute all descriptive statistics. Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used to evaluate the genotype distribution and allele frequencies of the studied polymorphism.

Results: these studies revealed that the frequency of T allele was significantly higher in HL patients compared to the controls (P < 0.05). In addition, the frequency of CT and TT genotypes were also significantly higher in HL patients compared to the controls (P < 0.05). No association between C3435T polymorphism and response to ABVD was detected among HL patients (P > 0.05).

Conclusions: these results suggest that MDR1 C3435T polymorphism might play a role in HL occurrence; however this polymorphism is not correlated with the clinical response to ABVD.