Association of polymorphic G1934A variant (allele *4) of CYP2D6 gene with increased risk of breast cancer development in Ukrainian women.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer (BC) is among the most common oncologic pathology in economically developed countries where it afflicts nearly 10% of women. Polymorphism of CYP 2D6 gene is shown to be associated with increased risk of development of a number of pathologies, in particular cancer. AIM: The work was directed on evaluation of the role of polymorphism G1934A (allele *4) of CYP 2D6 gene in elevated risk of BC development in Ukrainian women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the study there were enrolled 85 patients (group І) with histologically verified BC diagnosis of stages I and ІІ. Clinical-genealogic study has been performed by the method of patient survey and following analysis of genealogy. Earlier obtained data on the frequency of genotypes and alleles of CYP 2D6 gene in 637 Ukrainian people have been used as a control. For determination of allele variant *4 (G1934A) of CYP 2D6 gene the method of PCR-RFLP has been used. RESULTS: An increased risk of BC development in hereditary tainted patients with genotype *4*4 of CYP 2D6 gene compared to the control group has been revealed. The frequency of *1*4 (IM) genotype has been found to be increased in the group of women with a family history of cancer (41.79%). Significant difference between the frequency of *1*1 (ЕМ) and *1*4 (ІМ) genotypes in females with PR-positive and PR-negative tumors in the group of hereditary tainted patients has been registered. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, our study has revealed an increased risk of BC development in hereditary tainted patients compared to control group with genotype *4*4 (РМ).

Relation between cell-to-cell adhesion and angiogenesis and clinico-morphological prognostic factors in patients with gastric cancer.

AIM: To study the relation between the expression of the molecules of cell-to-cell adhesion (E-cadherin, alpha- and beta-catenins) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and traditional clinico-morphological characteristics of tumors to evaluate their prognostic value in the patients with gastric cancer. METHODS: To analyze the expression of E-cadherin, alpha- and beta-catenins, and VEGF the paraffin embedded tumor samples were studied by immunohistochemical analysis with the use of respective monoclonal antibodies. RESULTS: The presence of E-cadherin in tumors correlated with the absence of metastases in regional lymph nodes and was observed, as a rule, in the patients at the early stages of the disease. The presence of beta-catenin expression has been detected in gastric tumors of the patients without distant metastases, while the level of VEGF expression correlated with the degree of gastric wall injury. It has been demonstrated that the expression of E-cadherin and alpha-catenin is associated with favourable disease course and is a characteristic pattern for early stages of gastric cancer of intestinal type. However, VEGF expression is typical for the late stages of gastric cancer of diffuse type and is associated with poor prognosis. CONCLUSION: At the base of combined clinical, histological and immunohistochemical analysis of gastric tumors it has been shown that E-cadherin, alpha-catenin and VEGF could be used as informative markers of the disease course.