ABSTRACT
Due to the conflicting results regarding the association between breast cancerand the GSTM1 null mutation, our aim was to research this associationin a Brazilian population and correlations withsmoking, reproductive history and several clinical pathologies. A case-control study was performed on 105 women with breast cancer and 278 controls. Extraction of DNA was accomplished according to the protocol of the GFX© kit and polymorphism analysis by the PCR technique. The control and experimental groups were compared and statistical analysis assessed by Xy or Fisher's exact test. The deletion in the GSTM1 gene in the breast cancer group had a prevalence of 32 (30.4 percent) individuals with the presence of null mutation. In the control group, the null mutation was present in 104 (37.4 percent) women. Upon comparison of the two groups, no statistically significant difference of the GSTM1 gene was observed, with an odds ratio (OR) of 0.74, 95 percent, confidence interval (CI) 0.45 - 1.20, p = 0.277. The results conclusively show that singlegene GSTM1 polymorphisms do not confer a substantial risk of breastcancer to its carriers. Furthermore, in this study no correlation was found between GSTs andsmoking, reproductive history and several clinical pathologies with respect to cancer risk.