Genetic susceptibility polymorphisms may be of substantial importance in the modulation of cancer risk. The prevalence for an array of polymorphic genes was determined in a cohort of male smokers who participated in a cancer prevention trial in Finland. A random sample of 120 individuals was selected from the trial cohort and the prevalence of variant alleles for nine genes was determined using a polymerase chain reaction-based approach. The prevalence values from this study were also compared with those of other populations derived from previous studies. Our results show that, with the exception of cytochrome P450-1A1 (CYP1A1) and cytochrome P450-2E1 (CYP2E1), all genes tested were sufficiently polymorphic to warrant an investigation of gene-environment studies. Most of the variant alleles, including alcohol dehydrogenase 3 (ADH3), glutathione-S-transferase (GSTM1), methionine synthase (MS), methylene tetrahydofolater reductase (MHTFR), CYP2E1 and CYP1A1, exhibited similar frequencies to other Caucasian populations. Interestingly, the prevalence of androgen receptor-CAG repeat (AR-CAG) and vitamin D receptor (VDR) polymorphisms differed significantly between the alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene (ATBC) Study and other Caucasian populations. We present herein results from this survey and conclude that the ATBC study population in Finland is sufficiently heterogeneous to facilitate analysis of genetic polymorphisms and disease associations.