Association between Estrogen Receptor Alpha Gene Polymorphisms and Susceptibility to Idiopathic Scoliosis in Bulgarian Patients: A Case-Control Study

BACKGROUND The current consensus on idiopathic scoliosis maintains that it has a multifactorial etiology with genetic predisposing factors. AIM Estrogen receptor alpha gene has been considered as candidate gene of idiopathic scoliosis. MATERIAL AND METHODS We conducted a case-control study of Bulgarian population samples (eighty patients with idiopathic scoliosis and one hundred-sixty healthy unrelated gender-matched controls) trying to investigate the association between common genetic polymorphisms of estrogen receptor alpha and the susceptibility to idiopathic scoliosis. Molecular detection of the restriction polymorphisms XbaI and PvuII was performed by polymerase chain reaction following by restriction fragment length polymorphism. The statistical analysis was performed by Pearson's chi-squared test. RESULTS Our case-control study showed statistically significant association between the PvuII polymorphism and susceptibility to idiopathic scoliosis and curve progression. No genotype or allele of XbaI polymorphism was found to be correlated with the onset or severity of the disease. CONCLUSIONS The identification of molecular markers with diagnostic and prognostic value could be useful for early detection of children at risk for the development of scoliosis and for prognosis of the risk for a rapid deformity progression. That would facilitate the therapy decisions and early stage treatment of the patient with the least invasive procedures.