In the cohort of patients studied, IL-18 expression in prostate cancers (with up to 10% of tumor cells stained) was associated with a favorable outcome and equally predictive as pathologic stage on multivariate analysis (log rank test, p = 0.02).
We conclude that there is evidence that the IL-18 gene promoter polymorphism -137G/ C influences the prognosis of prostate cancer patients in androgen deprivation therapy, although neither of the two SNPs contributes to prostate cancer development.
Genetic variants in genes encoding miRNA binding sites (ALOX15 (arachidonate 15-lipooxygenase), IL-16, IL-18 and RAF1 (v-raf-1 murine leukemia viral oncogene homolog 1)) previously implicated in prostate cancer development were evaluated.
This study hypothesizes that genetic variants of IL-18 (-607 C/A and -137 G/T) and IL-10 (-819 C/T and -592 C/A) may influence the circulating levels of these interleukins, thereby generating susceptibility risk to prostate cancer.
We conclude that promoter genetic variants of IL-18 and IL-10 with various modes of tobacco exposure may affect not only susceptibility risk but also severity in prostate cancer.
IL-18 mRNA expression was significantly elevated in GG genotypes (at -137) of PCa with relative mRNA expression of 13.95, that is, 8.48 folds higher (P < 0.05) than controls; and showed a significant median survival of 1243 days.