Genetic variation rs10484761 on 6p21.1 derived from a genome-wide association study is associated with gastric cancer survival in a Chinese population.

A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) on esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (ESCC) among Chinese people has discovered a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs10484761 on 6p21.1 region. We hypothesized that SNP rs10484761 T/C is associated with survival of gastric cancer. We genotyped SNP rs10484761 in 940 gastric cancer patients treated with surgical resection. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the association between the SNP rs10484761 and gastric cancer survival. In the dominant model, those who carry TC/CC genotypes had a significant shorter survival time (log-rank P=0.005), especially in the subgroups of aged male patients, cardia intestinal tumor (HR=1.41, 95% CI=1.08-1.84 for cardia cancer and HR=1.64, 95% CI=1.14-2.37 for intestinal-type), tumor size ≤ 5 cm (HR=1.41, 95% CI=0.56-0.99), T1 depth invasion (HR=2.34, 95% CI=1.20-4.56), lymph node metastasis (HR=1.51, 95% CI=1.19-1.96), no distant metastasis (HR=1.33, 95% CI=1.05-1.68), TNM stage III+IV (HR=1.50, 95% CI=1.13-1.98), and with chemotherapy (HR=1.53, 95% CI=1.17-1.99). The results indicated that SNP rs10484761 was associated with prognosis of gastric cancer, suggesting that this genetic variant may serve as a potential marker to predict the survival of gastric cancer in Chinese population.