Genetic variation rs10484761 on 6p21.1 derived from a genome-wide association study is associated with gastric cancer survival in a Chinese population

• Gastric cancer is a common cancer and has the second highest mortality rate.
• SNP rs10484761 is a novel locus discovered from a recent GWAS data.
• The association of the SNP and gastric cancer survival is explored firstly.
• SNP rs10484761 can affect prognosis of gastric cancer in a Chinese population.

A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) on esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (ESCC) among Chinese people has discovered a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs10484761 on 6p21.1 region. We hypothesized that SNP rs10484761 T/C is associated with survival of gastric cancer. We genotyped SNP rs10484761 in 940 gastric cancer patients treated with surgical resection. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the association between the SNP rs10484761 and gastric cancer survival. In the dominant model, those who carry TC/CC genotypes had a significant shorter survival time (log-rank P = 0.005), especially in the subgroups of aged male patients, cardia intestinal tumor (HR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.08–1.84 for cardia cancer and HR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.14–2.37 for intestinal-type), tumor size ≤ 5 cm (HR = 1.41, 95% CI = 0.56–0.99), T1 depth invasion (HR = 2.34, 95% CI = 1.20–4.56), lymph node metastasis (HR = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.19–1.96), no distant metastasis (HR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.05–1.68), TNM stage III + IV (HR = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.13–1.98), and with chemotherapy (HR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.17–1.99). The results indicated that SNP rs10484761 was associated with prognosis of gastric cancer, suggesting that this genetic variant may serve as a potential marker to predict the survival of gastric cancer in Chinese population.