Estrogen Receptor Gene Polymorphisms and Lung Adenocarcinoma Risk in Never-Smoking Women

One fourth of lung cancer patients are never smokers, consisting of 53% of women with lung cancer and 15% of men; the majority of these are adenocarcinomas. Estrogens interact with two types of receptors, ERα and ERβ, and may play a role in the development of lung cancer. This is a case-control study to test the hypothesis that there may be an association between ER gene polymorphisms and lung cancer in women who never smoked. ESR1 and ESR2 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data was obtained from a genome-wide association study (GWAS). For ESR1, 2 SNPs were associated with lung cancer and for ESR2, 1 SNP was associated. The risk of lung cancer was higher in women who did not take hormone replacement therpy (HRT) in the setting of an at risk genotype. One potential implication of this finding is to aid in the identification of never-smoking women who may benefit from lung cancer screening.