Polymorphic enzymes, urinary bladder cancer risk, and structural change in the local industry

J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2012;75(8-10):557-65. doi: 10.1080/15287394.2012.675308.

Abstract

In the 1990s, an uncommonly high percentage of glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1) negative bladder cancer cases (70%) was reported in the greater Dortmund area. The question arose as to whether this uncommonly high percentage of GSTM1 negative bladder cancer cases was due to environmental and/or occupational exposure decades ago. Thus, 15 years later, another study on bladder cancer was performed in the same area after the coal, iron, and steel industries had finally closed in the 1990s. In total 196 bladder cancer patients from the St.-Josefs-Hospital Dortmund-Hörde and 235 controls with benign urological diseases were assessed by questionnaire and genotyped for GSTM1, glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1), and the N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) tag SNP rs1495741. The frequency of the GSTM1 negative genotype was 52% in bladder cancer cases and thus lower compared to a previous study performed from 1992 to 1995 in the same area (70%). NAT2 genotypes were distributed equally among cases and controls (63% slow acetylators). Fewer GSTT1 negative genotypes were present in cases (17%) than in controls (20%).

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase / genetics
  • Coal
  • Environmental Exposure / adverse effects
  • Environmental Exposure / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Gene Frequency
  • Germany / epidemiology
  • Glutathione Transferase / genetics
  • Humans
  • Industry
  • Iron
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Occupational Exposure / adverse effects
  • Occupational Exposure / statistics & numerical data
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Risk Assessment
  • Steel
  • Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / enzymology*
  • Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / epidemiology*
  • White People

Substances

  • Coal
  • Steel
  • Iron
  • Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase
  • NAT2 protein, human
  • glutathione S-transferase T1
  • Glutathione Transferase
  • glutathione S-transferase M1