Distribution of stromal cell-derived factor-1 genetic polymorphism in head and neck cancer patients of Indonesian population

Head and neck cancer (HNC), the fourth most common cancer in Indonesia, is associated with several risk factors, including genetic ones. The chemokine Stromal Cell-Derived Factor-1 (SDF-1) contributes to tumor growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis of cancer. Recent studies suggest the G801A genetic polymorphism of SDF-1 as a factor increasing susceptibility to HNC. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the G801A polymorphism of SDF-1 is associated with the susceptibility of HNC in the Indonesian population. Samples from 50 head and neck cancer patients and 50 healthy controls were genotyped by PCR-RFLP method. The distributions of genotypes and alleles were analyzed for the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) and for the potential association with the head and neck cancer susceptibility by Fisher's exact test. The study showed no statistically significant difference in the frequencies of SDF-1 G801A polymorphism between the control and case groups. The homozygous variant genotype occurred at low frequency in both cancer and control groups, while the wild type was not less common in the cancer group than in the control group. Unlike in some studies on other Asian populations, the polymorphism was not found to be significantly associated with HNC susceptibility in the Indonesian population.