The association between the Survivin A9194G exon polymorphisms and papillary thyroid carcinoma risk in the Han Chinese population

The dysregulation of apoptosis plays a key role in carcinogenesis. This study was designed to investigate the association of apoptosis-related gene survivin A9194G single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) susceptibility. A case–control study of 126 patients and 198 controls was performed to investigate the association between Survivin A9194G polymorphisms and PTC susceptibility by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) following DNA sequencing methods. Moreover, the distribution of genotype frequency and the association of genotype with clinicopathologic characteristics were analyzed. We found that the survivin A9194G genotype was at a decreased risk of PTC (P = 0.003; odds ratio (OR) = 0.56). Furthermore, compared to the PTCs of the AA and AG phenotypes, the GG genotype thyroid cancers were significantly more common in younger patients and in cases of lower pathologic stages. In conclusion, the survivin (A9194G) polymorphism was found to play a protective role in the susceptibility to PTC. Nevertheless, further investigation with a larger sample size is needed to support our results.