Impact of alcohol dehydrogenase‐aldehyde dehydrogenase polymorphism on clinical outcome in patients with hypopharyngeal cancer

Background The purpose of this research was to investigate the association between alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) and aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) polymorphisms and hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) survival. Methods We genotyped ADH1B (rs1229984) and ALDH2 (rs671) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 85 Japanese male patients with hypopharyngeal SCC. The independent prognostic values of ADH1B‐ALDH2 genotypes were analyzed by univariate and multivariate proportional hazard Cox regression, taking well‐known clinical risk factors into account. Results Heavy drinkers with ALDH2*2 allele resulted in significantly worse overall survival (OS; P = .028) and disease‐free survival (DFS; P = .029) compared with other patients. Heavy drinkers with ALDH2*2 allele remained statistically significant in multivariate analysis for OS and DFS, indicating independent poor prognostic factor (hazard ratio [HR] 2.251; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.018‐4.975 and HR 2.261; 95% CI 1.021‐5.006, respectively). Conclusion We conclude that heavy drinkers with the ALDH2*2 allele are associated with poor outcome in hypopharyngeal SCC.