Vitamin D receptor polymorphisms and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer

The vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a critical mediator of the cellular effects of vitamin D. The associations between four common VDR polymorphisms (BSMI, APAI, TAQI, and FOKI) and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) were assessed in a case-control study nested within two prospective cohorts. One hundred seventy incident cases of EOC and 323 individually matched controls were genotyped. Overall, no associations were observed in genotype analyses. Haplotypes combining three SNPs in high linkage disequilibrium (BSMI, APAI, and TAQI) were also not associated with risk. These observations do not support a role for BSMI, APAI, TAQI, and FOKI polymorphisms in epithelial ovarian cancer in a predominantly Caucasian population.