Abstract
OBJECTIVE: We previously showed that Adamantiades-Behçet's disease (A-BD) is associated with a lower incidence of malignancy compared with the general population. Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) has been shown to play a role in cartilage regeneration and is increased in patients with A-BD. We also found 2 functional polymorphisms of the TGF-beta pathway, TGFBR1*6A and TGFB1*CC, that are associated with risk of malignancy. We tested whether incidence of these polymorphisms would differ in patients with A-BD compared with healthy controls of similar age and geographic location. METHODS: We performed a case-control study including 139 cases and 128 controls from Greece. Cases and controls were genotyped for TGFBR1*6A and TGFB1*CC. RESULTS: We found that cases had lower incidence of TGFBR1*6A compared with controls (11.3% vs 13.3%, respectively). Also, the incidence of TGFB1*CC was lower in cases than controls (24.6% vs 27.0%, respectively). These differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Although there is a suggestion that the lower incidence of TGFBR1*6A in A-BD patients may play a protective role against development of malignancy, larger studies would be needed to fully evaluate the role of TGF-beta and its polymorphisms in A-BD.