Genetic variants in DNA repair pathways are not associated with disease progression among multiple myeloma patients

DNA damage induced by high dose melphalan and autologous transplantation is repaired by the nucleotide excision repair (NER) and base excision repair (BER) pathways. We evaluated the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (n = 311) in the NER and BER pathways and disease progression in 695 multiple myeloma patients who underwent autologous transplantation. None of the SNPs were associated with disease progression. Pathway based analyses showed that the NER pathway had a borderline association with disease progression (p = 0.09). These findings suggest that common variation in the NER and BER pathways do not substantially influence disease progression in multiple myeloma patients.