Association Of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 4 Genetic Polymorphisms With Hepatocellular Carcinoma Susceptibility

Purpose: Human fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) polymorphisms has recently been shown to be associated with various types' tumor progression including breast, colon, prostate and sarcoma in humans. However, the association of FGFR4 with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unknown. We evaluated the association of FGFR4 with the risk of HCC development among patients in East China area with HCC and/or with HBV infection.Methods: We genotyped the FGFR4 at four SNP sites (rs351855, rs641101, rs376618, rs31777) in 1539 Chinese persons, including 734 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 415 individuals with HBV infection and 390 healthy subjects, using TaqMan SNP genotyping assay. Unconditional logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate associations of each SNP genotype with HCC susceptibility.Results: For rs351855 (Arg388) locus, we observed a statistically significant that HCC patients with C/T genotypes had an inverse risk of tumor with gross portal vein tumor thrombosis (gross PVTT) (OR= 0.61, 95%CI: 0.41-0.90). It also had an inverse risk in T/T genotypes for HCC with liver cirrhosis with a significant difference (OR= 0.33, 95%CI: 0.14-0.75). Relative to C allele at Arg388, OR of individual with T allele was 0.58 (P=0.0067). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the genetic polymorphism in FGFR4 is associated with the presence of HCC with liver cirrhosis and gross PVTT in Chinese patients.