Association of SRD5A2 genotype and pathological characteristics of prostate tumors

The enzyme product of SRD5A2, 5 alpha-reductase type II, is responsible for converting testosterone to the more metabolically active dihydrotestostero ne, Therefore, SRD5A2 may be involved in the development or growth of prost ate tumors, To examine the effects of allelic variants in the gene SRD5A2 o n the presentation of prostate tumors, we studied a sample, primarily Cauca sian, of 265 men with incident prostate cancer who were treated by radical prostatectomy.. We assessed the relationship of the A49T and V89L polymorph isms at SRD5A2 with clinical and pathological tumor characteristics of thes e patients. We found no association of V89L genotypes with any of the chara cteristics studied, The presence of the A49T variant was associated with a greater frequency of extracapsular disease [odds ratio (OR), 3.16; 95% conf idence interval (CI), 1.03-9.68] and a higher pathological tumor-lymph node -metastasis (pTNM) stage (OR, 3.11; 95% CI, 1.01-9.65). In addition, the A4 9T variant was overrepresented in two poor prognostic groups, which have be en correlated with reduced rates of biochemical disease-free survival, One group included men with at least two of the following poor prognostic varia bles: (a) stage T3 tumor; (b) PSA level >10; and/or (c) Gleason score, 7-10 (OR, 3.16; 95% CII 1.04-11.49). The second group included men with positiv e margins and high Gleason store (OR, 6.28; 95% CI, 1.05-37.73), Our result s suggest that the A49T mutation may influence the pathological characteris tics of prostate cancers and, thus, may affect the prognosis of these patie nts.