UGT1A1*6 ALLELE FREQUENCY IN VIETNAMESE KINH ETHNIC GROUP

Abstract

UGT1A1 is believed to have been associated with neutropenia and diarrhea side effects when using irinotecan in the treatment of cancer patients. Some variants of UGT1A1 cause sufficiently serious side effects leading to the need to reduce the dose or stop cancer treatment with irinotecan. The UGT1A1*6 variant is believed to increase the risk of neutropenia and is closely related to the risk of severe diarrhea in Asian cancer patients. In this study, we used the direct sequencing method exon 1 fragment of UGT1A1 gene to determine the genotype and allele frequency of UGT1A1*6 in 96 individuals of healthy Kinh ethnic group. The results showed that UGT1A1*6 variant is present in homozygous and heterozygous genotypes with frequencies of 21.875% (n=21) and 3.125% (n=3), respectively. The allele frequency of the UGT1A1*26 variant was 14.063% which was small compared with the wild type allele *1 (85.937%). The data obtained from the study contribute to an effective cancer treatment solution using the drug irinotecan.