Association of catechol-o-methyl transferase gene polymorphism with prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia

Background: a single nucleotide variation within catechol-o-methyl transferase (comt) gene may alter the comtenzyme activity level. polymorphism of val158met in the comt gene has been related to malignancy. in this regard, astudy was carried out to find a possible association between the comt gene polymorphism in patients with sporadicprostate cancer (pca) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (bph).methods: all types of comt158 val/met polymorphism were carried out using aso-pcr method in 41 patients withprostate cancer, 193 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and 107 healthy male individuals.results: the results of this study showed that the frequency of low producer allele a at codon 158 of the comt geneis significantly different in bph group compared to normal male control group (or, 95% ci, p value 1.95: 1.46, 2.44,0.021, respectively). however no significant difference was noticed when the comparison was made between prostatecancer group and normal male control group and also between bph and pca groups.conclusions: decreased level of catechol-o-methyl transferase gene activity may play a possible role in benignprostatic hyperplasia development but not in prostate cancer. increased level of comt gene activity has a protectiverole against bph.