[Study on the relationship between tumour necrosis factor gene polymorphism and prognosis in the patients with renal cell carcinoma].
BACKGROUND
Clinical significance of polymorphism of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) genes encoded on the short arm of the 6th chromosome in the patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has not been evaluated well so far. We studied on the TNF genes polymorphism of RCC focusing on the relationship between the genetic polymorphism and the prognosis.


METHODS
The subjects were seventy-three patients with RCC treated at our hospitals during the past 20 years. The genomic DNA was examined by the methods of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) from frozen peripheral blood of these patients. The items examined were the genetic polymorphisms of TNF-alpha (alpha 1, alpha 2) and TNF-beta (beta 1, beta 2), and we tried to study on the prognostic outcome of RCC based upon each zygote of TNF.


RESULTS
1) The proportion of TNF-alpha and TNF-beta polymorphisms: We observed TNF-alpha 1/1 homozygote in 71 patients (97.3%). As to TNF-beta polymorphism, we observed TNF-beta 2/2 homozygote in 33 patients (45.2%), TNF-beta 1/2 heterozygote in 31 (42.5%) and TNF-beta 1/1 homozygote in 9 (12.3%). The proportion of TNF-beta polymorphism was almost the same as that of healthy Japanese. 2) PROGNOSIS: Regarding the 17-year survival, all patients with TNF-beta 1/1 homozygote were alive, and we observed a significantly favourable prognosis in the patients with TNF-beta 1/1 homozygote compared with other zygotes of TNF-beta polymorphism. The reasons for these favourable prognosis were thought that the patients with TNF-beta 1/1 homozygote showed much lower stage and/or grade than those of other zygotes.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that the TNF-beta gene polymorphism is a useful marker for understanding the prognosis of RCC and a part of cellular immunity related to the tumour and its host.
Onishi
T
T
Department of Urology, Jikei University School of Medicine.
Ohishi
Y
Y
Goto
H
H
Asano
K
K
Makino
H
H
Hatano
T
T
Tomita
M
M
Abe
K
K
Imagawa
K
K
Kinoshita
M
M
Fukui
T
T
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002292:Carcinoma, Renal Cell / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000235:genetics*
D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha