Frequency of HLA‐C alleles in differentiated thyroid carcinoma in southeastern Spain

Abstract

BACKGROUND The development of thyroid carcinoma may be influenced genetically and has been associated with certain HLA alleles. HLA‐C alleles have not been studied in depth, because available serology techniques have not been very reliable in detecting them. However, the development of molecular biology provided an efficient and reliable technique for allele detection. The aims of the current study were to determine whether there is a significant association between any HLA‐C allele and differentiated thyroid carcinoma and to establish the possible susceptibility or protection alleles related to these tumors. METHODS HLA‐C genotyping was performed in 63 patients undergoing surgery for differentiated thyroid carcinoma (57 patients with the papillary subtype and 6 patients with the follicular subtype). A representative sample of 100 nonrelated healthy Caucasians was used as a control group from the same geographic area. The polymerase chain reaction–sequence‐specific primer technique was used for HLA‐C genotyping. The clinical variables analyzed were age, gender, family history of thyroid pathology, residence in areas of endemic goiter, asymptomatic status, presence of hyperthyroidism, compressive symptoms, presence of an intrathoracic thyroid component, histologic variables of the tumor, and evolution. The chi‐square test, the Mantel–Haenszel test, and the Bonferroni correction were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS In the control group, a significant correlation was observed between the lower frequency of the HLA‐Cw7 allele and the development of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (P < 0.05). Analysis of the different clinical variables revealed a relation between HLA‐C alleles and three clinical situations: cervical lymph node involvement with HLA‐Cw7 and HLA‐Cw2, vascular involvement with HLA‐Cw7 and HLA‐Cw1, and cervical carcinoma recurrence with HLA‐Cw1. However, after application of the Bonferroni correction, only the association between HLA‐Cw7 and lymphatic (Pc = 0.0483) or vascular involvement (Pc = 0.0324) persisted. CONCLUSIONS The results revealed a relation between HLA‐Cw7 and differentiated thyroid carcinoma. In future investigations, HLA‐C typing may help to identify patients with a poor prognosis. Cancer 2004;100:264–9. © 2003 American Cancer Society.

HLA-DR Association in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

“…In another study in Spanish population an association has been reported between HLA-DR11 and papillary thyroid carcinoma [6]. The discrepancies in the previous findings on different HLA-DR associations and thyroid carcinoma are probably due the ethnic or geographic differences or in some cases might be due to the small sample size studied [15,17]. Also the results obtained in our study must be confirmed on a population which cases and controls are fully age and sex matched.…”

“…Several reports support the association between different alleles of HLA and thyroid carcinoma in different populations [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. However different results have also been reported [12,14,15].…”

Association of HLA-B*51:01 with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma in the Chinese Han Population of the Shandong Coastal Areas

“…Rios et al (18) reported a relationship between the lower frequency of the HLA-C*07 allele and the presence of differentiated thyroid carcinoma. However, Vahid et al (19) found that HLA-C*04 and HLA-C*15 contributed to the risk for the development of PTC and that there was no association between HLA-C*07 and PTC.…”

Associations of HLA-C Alleles With Multinodular Goiters

“…50,51 Our finding of an association between the HLACw7 allele and such family history indicates that patients with both characteristics could be at major risk of malignization. Our previous results 52 in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma revealed a relationship between the HLA-Cw7 allele and this carcinoma.…”