Background: In recent years, microRNA (miRNA) pathways have emerged as a crucial system for the regulation of tumorogenesis. miR-SNPs are a novel class of single nucleotide polymorphisms that can affect miRNA pathways.
Design and methods: We analyzed eight miR-SNPs by allelic discrimination in 141 patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and correlated the results with treatment-related toxicity, response, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).
Results: The KRT81 (rs3660) GG genotype was associated with an increased risk of neurological toxicity (P = 0.016), while patients with XPO5 (rs11077) AA or CC genotypes had a higher rate of bleomycin-associated pulmonary toxicity (P = 0.048). Both miR-SNPs emerged as independent factors in the multivariate analysis. The XPO5 AA and CC genotypes were also associated with a lower response rate (P = 0.036). XPO5 (P = 0.039) and TRBP (rs784567) (P = 0.022) genotypes emerged as prognostic markers for DFS, and XPO5 was also associated with OS (P = 0.033). In the multivariate analysis, only XPO5 emerged as an independent prognostic factor for DFS (HR: 2.622; 95%CI 1.039-6.620; P = 0.041). Given the influence of XPO5 and TRBP as individual markers, we then investigated the combined effect of these miR-SNPs. Patients with both the XPO5 AA/CC and TRBP TT/TC genotypes had the shortest DFS (P = 0.008) and OS (P = 0.008).
Conclusion: miR-SNPs can add useful prognostic information on treatment-related toxicity and clinical outcome in Hodgkin lymphoma and can be used to identify patients likely to be chemoresistant or to relapse.