MicroRNA-related genetic variations as predictors for risk of second primary tumor and/or recurrence in patients with early-stage head and neck cancer

Abstract

Second primary tumor (SPT) and/or recurrence negatively impact the prognosis of patients with curatively treated early-stage head and neck cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in cancer development. We explored whether the variations of miRNA-related pathway were associated with the risk of SPT/recurrence in patients with early-stage head and neck cancer. This study includes 150 early-stage head and neck cancer patients with SPT/recurrence and 300 patients without SPT/recurrence. Two hundred and thirty-five tagging and potentially functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped from eight miRNA biogenesis pathway genes and 135 miRNA-targeted genes. Eighteen miRNA-related SNPs were significantly associated with the risk of SPT/recurrence. The most significant SNP was rs3747238, a miRNA-binding site SNP in SMC1B. The variant homozygous genotype of this SNP was associated with a 1.74-fold increased risk [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19-2.54; P = 0.004]. Cumulative effect analysis showed joint effects for the number of unfavorable genotype in patients. Survival tree analysis further identified the high-order gene-gene interactions and categorized the study subjects into low-, medium- and high-risk groups. Patients in the high-risk group had a 4.84-fold increased risk (95% CI: 3.11-7.51; P = 2.45 × 10(-12)) and a shorter event-free median survival time of 37.9 months (log rank P = 2.28 × 10(-13)). Our results suggested that miRNA-related genetic polymorphisms may be used individually and jointly to predict the risk of SPT/recurrence of early-stage head and neck cancer patients.

Fig. 1.

(A) Kaplan–Meier curves of event-free survival time in early-stage head and neck cancer patients with the rs3747238 SNP. (B) Kaplan–Meier curve of SPT/recurrence-free survival time in early-stage head and neck cancer patient with different unfavorable genotype groups identified by cumulative effect analysis. N, the number of unfavorable genotypes. (C) Kaplan–Meier curve of SPT/recurrence-free survival time in early-stage head and neck cancer patient with different risk groups identified by survival tree analysis. The numbers in parentheses are the numbers of patients with event/total patients with the respective genotype. N, the number of nodes in each risk groups; MST in months.

Fig. 2.

Survival tree analysis using the 18 significant SNPs identified in the individual SNP analysis.