Diet folate, DNA methylation and genetic polymorphisms of MTHFRC677T in association with the prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

BMC Cancer

Research Article

Hui Xie¹  Fengliang Wang¹  Cheng Lu¹  Jianming Wang²  Hongbing Shen² 

[1] Department of Breast, Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R. China;Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R. China;

关键词: Folate;    Esophageal Cancer;    Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma;    Food Frequency Questionnaire;    Folate Intake;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-11-91

 received in 2010-11-08, accepted in 2011-03-05,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFolic acid may affect the development of human cancers. However, few studies have evaluated the consumption of diet folate in the prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).MethodsOne hundred and twenty five ESCC patients underwent esophagectomy between January 2005 and March 2006 in the Yangzhong People's Hospital were recruited and followed up. The effects of diet folate, aberrant DNA methylation of selected genes and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T genetic polymorphisms on the prognosis of ESCC were evaluated by using Cox proportional hazard regression models.ResultsOur analysis showed an inverse association between diet folate intake and the risk of death after esophagectomy. The median survival time was 3.06 years for low or moderate folate consumption and over 4.59 years for high folate consumption. After adjusting for potential confounders, the hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) [HRs (95% CI)] were 0.72 (0.36-1.46) for moderate and 0.39 (0.20-0.78) for high folate intake, respectively (P for trend = 0.007). This preventive effect was more evident in patients carrying MTHFR 677CC genotype. No significant relation was observed between aberrant DNA methylation of P16, MGMT and hMLH1 gene, as well as MTHFR C677T genetic polymorphisms and the prognosis of ESCC.ConclusionsOur research indicated that diet folate intake may have benefits on the prognosis of ESCC after esophagectomy. From a practical viewpoint, the findings of our study help to establish practical intervention and surveillance strategies for managements of ESCC patients and can finally decrease the disease burden.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Lu et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.