HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-DRB1 polymorphisms and risk of cervical squamous epithelial cell carcinoma: a population study in China.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women. HLA class I and II alleles polymorphisms have been shown to associate with cervical cancer risk, but results varied among different populations. In this study, the HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 alleles among 100 southern Chinese women with cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were compared to 254 controls. Our results showed that B51:01:02 allele frequency was significantly higher in patients with SCC than that in healthy controls (P = 3.17x 10-5, Pc = 0.005, OR = 26.68). Statistical analysis also revealed a significantly decreased frequency of B51:01:01 (P = 7.01x 10-4, Pc = 0.03, OR = 0.12) in patients with SCC when compared with healthy controls. These results indicate that HLA-B51:01:02 may confer susceptibility to SCC and HLA-B51:01:01 may contribute to the resistance to the development of SCC in Chinese women. None of the HLA-A-B or HLA-A-B-DRB1 haplotypes were significantly different in cases and controls after multiple testing corrections, implicating those individual allele associations are independent of the identified haplotypes. These results support the hypothesis that some HLA-B alleles could be involved with susceptibility for developing SCC.