The Aurora Kinase A polymorphisms are not associated with recurrencefree survival in prostate cancer patients

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the Aurora Kinase A (AURKA) gene and prostate cancer outcomes in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer. Methods: Four intronic haplotype-tagging SNPs within the AURKA gene were individually selected and examined in regard to their influence on clinical outcomes in 212 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy as first-line treatment. Haplotype-tagging SNPs were selected using the ABI SNP Browser to cover SNPs with an r2 of 0.90 or greater in the AURKA gene with a minor allele frequency of at least 0.25. Results: In our study, a log-rank univariate analysis was performed to identify significant associations between probability of recurrence-free survival or disease-free survival and known prognostic indicators as well as AURKA genotypes. The prognostic indicators Gleason grade, surgical margin, extracapsular extension, and disease stage were associated with recurrence-free survival (all p<0.001). Only Gleason grade was associated with disease-free survival (p<0.001). No associations were found for the SNPs rs1468055, rs8117896, rs2064863, and rs1468056 analyzed for either RFS (p=0.7213, p=0.5140, p=0.0714, p=0.4731, respectively) or DFS (p=0.3282, p=0.1909, p=0.4111, p=0.5014, respectively). Conclusions: This study demonstrates no evidence for intronic AURKA SNPs in predicting recurrence-free survival in patients with prostate cancer.