Latent structure of dermatoglyphics in gastric cancer patients

Gastric cancer is a very common malignant disease, which etiology is still unknown. It is believed that it is caused by a joint activity of both genetic and environmental factors. Gastric cancer between relatives in some families is almost four times higher and in connection with truncating mutations in the E-cadherin gene. The Helicobacter pylori are also established carcinogen and this infection increases the cancer risk by about 5 times. Digito-palmar dermatoglyphics have already been used for determining hereditary base of some malignant diseases (breast, lung, colorectal cancer etc.), which was the encouragement to investigate the latent structure in patients with gastric cancer (36 males and 32 females) and the control groups (50 males and 50 females). The factor analysis has shown that in both males and females with gastric cancer 5 factors were extracted and in males 77.17% and in females 78.92% of total variance was explained, and this result is different from control group where in males 5 factors and 75.97% of total variance were explained while in control females 6 factors and 82.86% of total variance were explained. The finger ridge counts are extracted on the first factor in all groups. In patients the second factor is formed by the first, fourth and fifth fingers, while in controls mostly by palmar variables. From the obtained findings it can be concluded that the results of latent structure in quantitative analysis of digito-palmar dermatoglyphics are affirming the existence of genetic differences in patients suffered with gastric cancer.