Background/aims: Cholangiocellular carcinoma (CCA) has a devastating prognosis and markers enabling a precise prediction of the clinical outcome have long remained scarce. Recently, it has been demonstrated that genotype distribution of several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes that modulate G protein-signal transduction and apoptosis can serve as helpful predictive parameters in various carcinomas. We here aimed at extending the panel of SNPs suitable for predicting the outcome of CCA.
Methodology: Forty Caucasian patients with extrahepatic CCA and 40 age- and sex-matched healthy white Caucasians were genotyped to elucidate putative associations between clinical outcome and genotypes of the three following SNPs: G protein beta 3 (GNB3) 825C>T, B-cell-lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) -938C>A, and myeloid cell leukemia-1 (Mcl-1) -386C>G.
Results: Patients homozygous for the C allele of the GNB3 825C>T polymorphism exhibited a significant prolonged overall survival compared with patients displaying the CT or TT genotype (median survival [months]: 31 vs. 13 vs. 7; p < .05) and also showed lower bilirubin serum levels. Additionally, the CC genotype of the BCL2-938C>A polymorphism was associated with higher GLDH serum activities (U/l; 29.8 +/- 7.1 vs. 11.4 +/- 4.3 vs. 5.6 +/- 1.7 comparing CC vs. CA vs. AA; p < .05). Genotype distributions for all SNPs were not significantly different in patients vs. controls.
Conclusions: GNB3 825C>T SNP may be a novel independent prognostic marker for patients suffering from extrahepatic CCA with the CC genotype to be associated with a favorable clinical outcome. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these results and reveal additional functional SNP effects.