Combinations of genetic data in a study of oral cancer

In the single locus strategy a number of genetic variants are analyzed, in order to find variants that are distributed significantly different between controls and patients. A supplementary strategy is to analyze combinations of genetic variants. A combination that is the genetic basis for a polygenic disorder will not occur in in control persons genetically unrelated to patients, so the strategy is to analyze combinations of genetic variants present exclusively in patients. In a previous study of oral cancer and leukoplakia 325 SNPs were analyzed. This study has been supplemented with an analysis of combinations of two SNP genotypes from among the 325 SNPs. Two clusters of combinations containing 95 patient specific combinations were significantly associated with oral cancer or leukoplakia. Of 373 patients with oral cancer 205 patients had a number of these 95 combinations in their genome, whereas none of 535 control persons had any of these combinations in their genome.