Allelotyping of Hras1Minisatellite: Formation of Carcinogenic Risk Groups and Prognosis of the Clinical Course of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

PCR-based typing of Hras1minisatellite alleles was carried out in 226 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 207 unaffected controls. Application of this method permitted detection of four common (a1toa4) and 25 other alleles, differing from any common allele by one or more repeat units. Depending on their frequency in control group, these alleles were defined as intermediate or rare (the frequency over 0.5% or less than 0.5%, respectively). It was established that the frequency of rare alleles in the group of NSCLC patients (7.1%) was statistically significantly higher than in healthy individuals (2.2%, P= 0.002), while the difference in the distribution of common and intermediate alleles between the compared groups was not statistically significant. In addition, rareHras1alleles were more frequent (P= 0.02) among nonsmoking patients (P= 0.02) compared to the patients subjected to of tobacco carcinogens. The presence of heavy (a3–a4) alleles was associated with an increased risk of low-differentiated and/or actively metastasizing tumors and also with the risk of lung cancer in the patients under 50 years of age (P< 0.05). These data indicate that an approach including application of modern highly sensitive techniques ofHras1allele typing in combination with preliminary examination of healthy control population can be employed for identifying carcinogenic risk groups as well as for prognosis of the NSCLC clinical course.