Association of H-ras polymorphisms and susceptibility to sporadic colon cancer.

High incidence of colon cancer worldwide indicates the importance of studying genetic alterations that lead to its carcinogenesis. Two polymorphisms in H-ras gene, hexanucleotide tandem repeats in the first intron and SNP 81T>C in the first exon, that might be connected with susceptibility to cancer have been described. The aim of our study was to investigate these loci in Croatian population and to determine if any of them is connected with susceptibility to colon cancer in our population. Two hundred healthy volunteers and 200 colon cancer patients were genotyped using PCR and RFLP methods. We noted statistically significant difference in genotype distribution at hexanucleotide locus between healthy population and colon cancer patients (p=0.013) but not in allelic distribution. At SNP 81 T>C statistically significant difference in distribution of both genotypes (p=9.15x10(-6)) and alleles (p=2.77x10(-6)) was found. No differences were found between genders.