CDKN1B V109G polymorphism frequency and prostate cancer risk in Taiwan

The CDKN1B (p27) V109G polymorphism has been suggested to confer the risk of advanced prostate cancer in Caucasian males. However, its prevalence in Asian populations has never been reported. The aim of this study was to determine the CDKN1B V109G polymorphism frequency in the low incidence Taiwanese population and investigate its potential role on prostate cancer susceptibility and disease progression.

A hospital-based case-control study was conducted, which enrolled a total of 190 prostate cancer patients and 292 age-matched male controls. PCR-RFLP was used to determine the CDKN1B V109G polymorphism. The association between CDKN1B V109G and prostate cancer risk and clinicopathologic variables was analyzed.

The variant CDKN1B G allele frequency in Taiwanese males appears to be low (2.1%). Overall, there was no significant association between CDKN1B V109G polymorphism and prostate cancer risk. Similarly, no significant findings were found when further stratified by different age groups, disease stages, and pathological grades. In terms of disease outcome, the CDKN1B V109G genotypes were not associated with either hormone response status after hormone therapy (p = 0.730) or with prostate-specific antigen recurrence for clinically localized prostate cancer patients who receive radical prostatectomy (p = 0.536).

There was a low prevalence of CDKN1B V109G polymorphism in Taiwanese compared to Caucasian males. Hence, it may not be an appropriate biomarker of prostate cancer among the Taiwanese population. Further large-scale studies are needed to clarify the role of CDKN1B V109G polymorphism on prostate cancer risk.