The influence of polymorphisms in genes related to oxidative stress on breast cancer survival in a German case-control study

Background: In Germany, about 17,500 women die from breast cancer annually. As radio- and chemotherapy partly exert their cytotoxic effects by increased formation of reactive oxygen species, variants in oxidative stress-related genes might influence efficacy of treatment and therefore modify survival time. The aim of this study was thus to evaluate the effect of 109 common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 22 oxidative stress-related genes on all-cause mortality in breast cancer patients. Methods: Incident breast cancer patients aged 50–74 and diagnosed between 2002–2005 from the German population-based…