with thyroid cancer Research Article

The association between vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms and some diseases such as colorectal cancer, breast cancer, osteoporosis and psoriasis has been extensively investigated during the past few years. This research was performed not only because of the role of vitamin D as an anticancer agent, but also because of the suppressing action of vitamin D on TSH, the major regulator of thyroid cell growth. In this case-control study, comprising 71 thyroid cancer patients and 82 healthy population controls, we investigated the association between altered thyroid cancer risk with four polymorphisms located at the 3 ' end of the VDR gene detectable by ApaI, TaqI, Tru9 and BsmI restriction enzymes and with a start codon polymorphism located at the 5 ' end characterized by restriction enzyme FokI. The individual genetic pattern for VDR was evaluated by DNA extraction followed b