Abstract
Particular alleles of the
interleukin-1B (IL-1B)
gene have been correlated with increased risk of atrophic gastritis and gastric cancer in the populations of East Asia and Europe. No such data exist from Peru, a developing country with a population genotypically different from others studied and with a high prevalence of
Helicobacter pylori
infection and gastric cancer. We conducted a case-control study comparing 334 hospitalized patients with atrophic gastritis or gastric cancer with 158 nonatrophic gastritis patients (controls). Conditional logistic regression analysis revealed that an increased risk of atrophic gastritis (odds ratio, 5.60) and gastric cancer (odds ratio, 2.36) was associated with the
IL-1B
-511 C allele. Our study is the first to establish this allele as a risk for these conditions. Given the high prevalence of
H. pylori
and recurrence rate after treatment,
IL-1B
-511 single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis may identify those individuals who would benefit most from robust
H. pylori
eradication efforts in Peru.
