Objective: Lysosome associated protein transmembrane 4 beta (LAPTM4B) was originally identified as a gene in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It was successfully cloned by fluorescence differential display, rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Previous study showed that the novel gene played an important role in the occurrence, development, migration and prognosis of tumors. Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive malignancy with the majority of patients dying within one year after diagnosis. This study tries to find out the relationship between lysosome associated protein transmembrane 4 beta gene polymorphism and the susceptibility of pancreatic cancer.

Methods: A case-control study was conducted in China, including 58 pancreatic cancer cases and 156 healthy controls. Human genomic DNA was used as the template, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect the distribution of LAPTM4B genotype. Analyses Odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (95%CI) with logistic regression were performed.

Results: Two alleles of LAPTM4B generated three kinds of genotypes in population, *1/1, *1/2, and *2/2. The genotype frequency of *1/1, *1/2 and *2/2 in the pancreatic cancer group were 41.4%, 44.8% and 13.8% respectively, which were not significantly different from those of healthy group (47.4%, 42.9%, 9.6%) (P=0.773, P=0.291). Also the *2 allele frequency of LAPTM4B among pancreatic cancer had no significantly difference with the controls (P=0.354). When compared to the *1 allele, the people with *2 allele had no increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

Conclusion: The gene polymorphism of LAPTM4B may not influence the susceptibility of pancreatic cancer.