Association of a Genetic Polymorphism of the E-cadherin Gene with Prostate Cancer in a Japanese Population

The E-cadherin gene has been identified as having a physiological role in cellular attachment, and is hypothesized to participate in carcinogenesis. A polymorphism (an A to C substitution) in the 5 0 -untranslated region has a direct effectonE-cadheringene transcriptional regulation. We explored the association betweenE-cadheringene polymorphism and the risk of prostate cancer inaJapanesepopulation.Thesubjectsconsistedof236patientswithprostatecancer,209benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients and 139 male controls. A marginally significant difference was found between prostate cancer patients and male controls (P = 0.053). No significant differencewasobservedbetweenprostatecancerandBPHpatients.Whenpatientswithprostate cancer were divided into two groups, stage A+B and stage C+D, a significant difference was observed betweenprogressive cancerpatients (stage C+D)and male controls (odds ratio =1.93, P = 0.016). It is possible that the presence of one A allele resulted in an increased risk of cancer progression.