Kaouther Snoussi, from the Université de Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia and colleagues from other institutions in Tunisia and Scripps-Florida, USA, matched 308 patients diagnosed with breast carcinoma with 222 healthy individuals who had no personal or family history of cancer and acted as controls. The authors genotyped both patients and control individuals for a specific polymorphism in either LEP or LEPR.
Snoussi et al.'s results show that individuals with the LEP polymorphism had a higher risk of developing breast cancer than individuals who do not have it. The risk increased for individuals with two copies of the polymorphism (homozygote) and these people had a threefold higher risk of developing breast cancer than individuals who do not have the polymorphism at all. The frequency of individuals with the LEPR polymorphism was significantly higher in the group of patients than in the group of controls. The LEP polymorphism was also associated with a large tumour size at diagnosis and decreased disease-free survival, while the LEPR polymorphism was associated with a shorter overall survival time.
Article:
Leptin and Leptin Receptor Polymorphisms are Associated with Increased Risk and Poor Prognosis of Breast Carcinoma
aouther Snoussi, Donny A Strosberg, Noureddine Bouaouina, Slim Ben Ahmed, Ahmed Nouredine Helal and Lotfi Chouchane
BMC Cancer (in press)
Journal
BMC Cancer