Tumor Necrosis Factor-o ( Promotor

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether having the mutant tumor necrosisfactor (TNF)2 (G-308*A) and TNFA-A (G- 238*A) alleles in the TNF-ox gene promotor region is higher in women with endometriosis, we determined the respective genotype and allele frequencies in a retrospective case-control study. METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction wasperformed to identify the G-308A and G-238Apromotor polymorphisms in 92 women with surgically and histologically confirmed endometriosis. A series of 69 healthy women without a history of endometriosis served as clinical controls. RESULTS: The allele frequencies of the TNF2 polymorphism were 0. 13 and 0. 16 in women with endometriosis and in the control group, respectively, and thefrequencies of the TNFA-A polymorphisms in women with endometriosis and in the control group were 0.04 and 0. 05, respectively, with no significant diference between the study and control groups. The TNF2 polymorphism was present in the homozygous form (TNF212) in 4.3 % of women with endometriosis and in 2.9 % of controls (P =.7). No TNFA-A homozygotes (TNFAA/A) were detected. CONCLUSION: We studied TNF-ot promotorgene variants among women with endometriosis andfound that having the G-308A TNF-et and the G-238A TNF-at polymorphism was not associated with endometriosis in a white population. (] Soc Gynecol Investig 2002;9:3 13- 8) Copyright C 2002 by the