"We conducted a two-stage genome-wide association study of pancreatic cancer, a cancer with one of the lowest survival rates worldwide. We genotyped 558,542 SNPs in 1,896 individuals with pancreatic cancer and 1,939 controls drawn from 12 prospective cohorts plus one hospital-based casecontrol study," scientists writing in the journal Nature Genetics report.
"We conducted a combined analysis of these groups plus an additional 2,457 affected individuals and 2,654 controls from eight case-control studies, adjusting for study, sex, ancestry and five principal components. We identified an association between a locus on 9q34 and pancreatic cancer marked by the SNP rs505922 (combined P = 5.37 x 10(-8); multiplicative per-allele odds ratio 1.20; 95% confidence interval 1.12-1.28). This SNP maps to the first intron of the ABO blood group gene," wrote L. Amundadottir and colleagues, National Institutes of Health.
The researchers concluded: "Our results are consistent with earlier epidemiologic evidence suggesting that people with blood group O may have a lower risk of pancreatic cancer than those with groups A or B."
Amundadottir and colleagues published their study in Nature Genetics (Genome-wide association study identifies variants in the ABO locus associated with susceptibility to pancreatic cancer. Nature Genetics, 2009;41(9):986-U47).
Additional information can be obtained by contacting L. Amundadottir, National Cancer Institute, Laboratory Translat Genom, Division Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, National Institutes of Health, Dept. of Hlt & Human Service, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
The publisher of the journal Nature Genetics can be contacted at: Nature Publishing Group, 75 Varick St., 9TH Flr, New York, NY 10013-1917, USA.
Copyright 2009, Clinical Oncology Week via NewsRx.com
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