Letters To The Editor
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World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2011; 17(41): 4640-4642
Published online Nov 7, 2011. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v17.i41.4640
Pancreatic cancer risk variant ABO rs505922 in patients with cholangiocarcinoma
Marcin Krawczyk, Florentina Mihalache, Aksana Höblinger, Monica Acalovschi, Frank Lammert, Vincent Zimmer
Marcin Krawczyk, Florentina Mihalache, Frank Lammert, Vincent Zimmer, Department of Medicine II, Saarland University Medical Center, 66421 Homburg, Germany
Florentina Mihalache, Monica Acalovschi, Department of Medicine III, University Iuliu Hatieganu, 400162 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Aksana Höblinger, Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Bonn, 53127 Bonn, Germany
Author contributions: Krawczyk M and Mihalache F contributed equally to this work; Mihalache F performed genotyping; Mihalache F, Höblinger A, Acalovschi M and Zimmer V included patients and controls in the study; Krawczyk M, Lammert F and Zimmer V analyzed the data; Zimmer V and FLammert F designed and supervised the project; Krawczyk M, Zimmer V and Lammert F wrote and edited the paper.
Correspondence to: Dr. Marcin Krawczyk, Department of Medicine II, Saarland University Medical Center, Kirrberger Str. 1, 66421 Homburg, Germany. marcin.krawczyk@uks.eu
Telephone: +49-6841-1623242 Fax: +49-6841-1623570
Received: January 9, 2011
Revised: June 21, 2011
Accepted: June 28, 2011
Published online: November 7, 2011
Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate an association between the development of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and the ABO variant rs505922 (known to increase pancreatic cancer risk) in a large cohort of European individuals with CCA. In total, 180 individuals with CCA and 350 CCA-free controls were included. The ABO variant rs505922 was genotyped using a polymerase chain reaction-based assay. Association between this single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and CCA was tested in contingency tables. Neither allele distributions nor association tests and regression analysis provided evidence for an increased risk of CCA among carriers of the ABO variant (all P > 0.05). Nevertheless, we documented a deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in the entire CCA cohort (P = 0.028) and for patients with intrahepatic (P = 0.037) but not extrahepatic tumor localization (P > 0.05). The association tests did not provide evidence for a prominent role of the investigated SNP in the genetic risk of CCA. However, Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium in the entire cohort and the intrahepatic CCA subgroup warrants future studies investigating a potential CCA risk modulation by individual blood groups.

Keywords: ABO; Biliary tract cancer; Blood groups; Genetic risk; Single nucleotide polymorphism