Genetic variants at 6p21.1 are associated with head and neck cancer in Chinese Han population.

Background: A recent study synthesized several published genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on three types of cancers and identified variants at 6p21.1 and 7p15.3 as candidate susceptibility loci for multiple types of human cancers. However, the role of these loci in the development of head and neck cancer (HNC) is still unclear.

Methods: To evaluate the relationships between genetic variants in these regions and HNC risk, we genotyped two common SNPs rs2494938 at 6p21.1 and rs2285947 at 7p15.3 in a case-control study with a total of 503 HNC cases and 900 controls in Han Chinese.

Results: We found that rs2494938 at 6p21.1 was associated with a significantly increased risk of HNC in our population [AA vs. GG: adjusted odds ratio (OR)=1.84, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.13-3.00, P=0.014; AAvs.

Ga/gg: adjusted OR=1.78, 95% CI=1.10-2.87, P=0.018]. However, no significant association was observed between rs2285947 at 7p15.3 and HNC risk.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that genetic variants at 6p21.1 may play an important role in HNC development in Han Chinese, and rs2494938 may be a candidate marker for HNC susceptibility.