Background: Neuroblastoma is one of the most common extracranial solid pediatric tumors. KRAS  plays an important role in regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in KRAS  have been shown to modify susceptibility to multiple tumors, but no specific molecular epidemiology study was reported regarding neuroblastoma.
Methods: We conducted a four-center case-control study to explore the association between KRAS  gene polymorphisms (rs12587 G>T, rs7973450 A>G, rs7312175 G>A) and neuroblastoma susceptibility with 505 Chinese children and 1070 matched controls.
Results: We found that rs7973450 A>G was associated with significantly increased neuroblastoma risk [GG vs. AA: adjusted odds ratio (OR)=4.26, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.28–14.19, P =0.018; GG vs. AA/AG: adjusted OR=4.27, 95% CI=1.28–14.24, P =0.018]. The stratified analysis further demonstrated that rs7973450 GG genotype carriers had a higher risk to develop neuroblastoma in the subgroups of males, tumor originated from the adrenal gland and clinical stages III+IV.
Conclusions: Overall, our results suggested that rs7973450 A>G was associated with increased neuroblastoma risk.
Keywords: neuroblastoma, KRAS , polymorphism, susceptibility