Different susceptibility of each L-myc genotype to esophageal cancer risk factors

To understand the relationship between the L-myc genotypes and esophageal c ancer risk, a polymerase chain reaction-based restriction fragment length p olymorphism analysis was performed on 91 Japanese patients with esophageal cancer and 241 non-cancer outpatients. No significant difference in the dis tribution of genotypes was observed between patients and controls; 18.7% LL genotype, 56.0% LS and 25.3% SS among patients, and 24.5%, 55.6% and 19.9% , respectively, among controls. Frequency of the s-allele in patients (0.53 3) was slightly higher than in controls (0.477), but the difference was not statistically significant. However, the odds ratios (ORs) for smoking or h eavy drinking were markedly higher in SS and LS genotypes than in LL genoty pe; age-sex-adjusted ORs for smoking was 7.57 in the SS genotype, 6.40 in t he LS genotype and 1.77 in the LL genotype. Age-sex-adjusted ORs for heavy drinking were 19.78, 18.20 and 7.40, respectively. The age-sex-adjusted ORs for both factors combined were 12.77, 18.45 and 1.44, respectively. These results suggested that the L-myc polymorphism might modify the effects of l ifestyle factors on esophageal cancer risk.