Abstract
Genetic predictive biomarkers of radiosensitivity are being sought to individualize radiation treatment of cancer patients. In this pilot case-control study, we tested the association between TGFB1 T869C codon 10 Leu/Pro (rs1982073), XRCC1 G28152A codon 399 Arg/Gln (rs25487), and XRCC3 C18067T codon 241 Thr/Met (rs861539) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and late reaction to radiotherapy in 60 nasopharyngeal cancer patients. Subcutaneous and deep tissue fibrosis was scored using the RTOG/EORTC grading system. Patients with moderate to severe fibrosis (radiosensitive cases, G2-3, n = 30) were matched and compared to those with little or no reaction (controls, G0-1, n = 30). The three nonsynonymous SNPs were genotyped by direct DNA sequencing. Significant association was observed for TGFB1 T869C and XRCC1 G28152A genotypes (P <= 0.05). Both variant alleles, TGFB1 869C and XRCC1 28152A, were associated with a lower grade of fibrosis (odds ratios were 0.41, 95% CI: 0.20-0.86, P = 0.02 and 0.30, 95% CI: 0.10-0.89, P = 0.02, respectively), and therefore the wild-types were the risk alleles. Interestingly, there was a significant difference in the median number of risk alleles between the radiosensitive and the control groups (P = 0.006). We conclude that radiotherapy complications are associated with genetic variations in our nasopharynx cancer patients. Our findings support the assumption of the combined effects of multiple SNPs. Large-scale studies are required to confirm these findings before polymorphisms can be used as predictive markers to individualize radiation therapy on genetic bases. (C) 2010 by Radiation Research Society