A specific African-American CYP1A1 polymorphism is associated with adenocarcinoma of the lung

A case-control study on lung cancer in African-Americans has been conducted to assess whether a novel African-American-specific polymorphism in the CYP1A1 gene increases the susceptibility to tobacco-related lung cancer. The prevalence of the AA RFLP was 17.1% in the DNA extracted from archived tissue blocks from 76 incident cases of lung cancer, and was 16.3% in peripheral blood lymphocyte DNA of 123 healthy African-American volunteers recruited from a community in the eastern United States. The analysis by histological type showed an association between adenocarcinoma (AC) of the lung and the AA RFLP (odds ratio, 2.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-6.3). One homozygous variant subject was present among the AC cases. The risk of AC in subjects who both smoke and carry the AA RFLP was more than double, in comparison to subjects who only smoke (relative interaction magnitude under the additive model, 24%). The mean value of pack-year in AC with the polymorphism was 5.0 +/- 2.5 and in AC without the polymorphism was 37.2 +/- 6.5 (P < 0.05). Our data suggest that a selective association exists between the AA polymorphism and adenocarcinoma of the lung and that a lower dose of tobacco is sufficient to exert carcinogenic effects on the adenomatous tissue of subjects carrying the AA polymorphism.