MAR 22, 2013
Retina/Vitreous
This prospective study found that a variant of the p53 codon 72 polymorphism is associated with a higher risk of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) development after a primary retinal detachment.
The authors analyzed the distribution of the codon 72 polymorphism in exon 4 of the p53 gene in 550 consecutive patients with primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment with (n = 134) and without (n = 416) PVR recruited from several European centers. In the first phase, subsamples from Spain and Portugal were analyzed. After significant results were found, samples from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were analyzed.
Spanish and Portuguese carriers of the homozygous proline variant in homozygosis showed a fourfold increased risk of PVR after retinal detachment compared with those who carried the homozygous arginine variant. This observation was confirmed in Dutch patients but not in the UK population, although a similar trend was seen.
The authors write that the absence of correlation in the UK group could potentially be explained by the observation that frequency of the p53 codon 72 alleles differs with latitude, increasing the proline variants within populations close to the equator, whereas the arginine variant predominates in northern latitudes. However, they say that there must be some other factors implicated in this difference. The possibility that it could be the result of ethnic diversity in the UK patients cannot be ruled out because many patients undergoing retinal detachment treatment in London have ancestry from the Indian subcontinent.
They conclude that the proline allele could be a significant risk factor for PVR development after a primary retinal detachment and could be used as a possible marker of risk of PVR after retinal detachment.