Influence of the human MIF promoter polymorphism on hepatocellular carcinoma prognosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common worldwide malignancies. A relative complete diagnosis system for primary carcinoma of liver has already been established, but the surgical prognosis for HCC, which depends mainly on postoperative pathological classification and data of recurrence and metastasis, lacks valid experimental indicators. Macrophage migration inhibition factor (MIF) is related to many cancers; hence, the polymorphism of MIF genes may be associated with the surgical prognosis of HCC. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between polymorphisms of MIF gene promoter 794CATT (MIF-794CATT) microsatellite repeats and HCC surgical prognosis and evaluate the contribution of polymorphism to the prognosis of hepatectomy. Sequencing was used to identify the MIF-794CATT of 241 patients who had been submitted to HCC surgery. These patients were classified into 2 groups: one with MIF-794CATT high-repetitive-sequence genotypes (7/x+8/x) and one with low-repetitive-sequence genotypes (5/5+5/6+6/6). Five indictors were analyzed: average survival times were compared using the t-test, and tumor-node-metastasis staging, recurrence and metastasis, differentiation grade, and survival rate were compared using the chi-square test. The (7/x+8/x) CATT group had 139 patients and the (5/5+5/6+6/6) CATT group had 102. Significant differences were found in the 5 factors (P = 0.000, 0.008, 0.002, 0.000, and 0.003, respectively). Patients with MIF-794CATT5-8 low-repetitive-sequence genotypes had better prognosis than those with high-repetitive-sequence genotypes. The polymorphism detection of MIF-794CATT microsatellite repeats is valuable for HCC surgical prognosis.