Clinical significance of runt-related transcription factor 1 polymorphism in prostate cancer

Although most clinically localized prostate cancer patients who underwent radical prostatectomy have a favorable outcome, molecular markers capable of providing prognostic information are still urgently needed to identify high-risk patients who might benefit from aggressive treatment. In this study, we found that RUNX1 rs2253319 polymorphism was significantly associated with higher risks of advanced pathological stage, lymph node metastasis, and time to disease recurrence. Our results suggest that a simple and pretreatment analysis of genetic variants might add prognostic value to the currently used indicators for outcome prediction in patients receiving radical prostatectomy. OBJECTIVE To investigate the association of RUNX1 rs2253319 with clinicopathological characteristics of prostate cancer (PCa) and disease recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP). PATIENTS AND METHODS Taking advantage of the systematic stage and grade for each tumor in a cohort of 314 patients with localized PCa receiving RP, we evaluated the associations of RUNX1 rs2253319 with age at diagnosis, preoperative prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, Gleason score, surgical margin, pathologic stage, status of lymph node metastasis, and PSA recurrence after RP. RESULTS The minor allele, T, and the minor homozygote TT genotype of RUNX1 rs2253319 were significantly associated with a 1.49- to 2.76-fold higher risk for advanced pathologic stage and a 3.35- to 9.52-fold higher risk for lymph node metastasis. RUNX1 rs2253319 TT genotype was also associated with poorer PSA-free survival compared with the major homozygote CC genotype in Kaplan-Meier analysis (log-rank test, P = 0.038) and multivariate Cox proportional hazards model adjusting for age and PSA concentration (P = 0.045). CONCLUSION RUNX1 rs2253319 is associated with adverse clinicopathological features and might be a prognostic factor for the recurrence of PSA in patients with PCa receiving RP.