Joint effects of smoking and gene polymorphisms on bladder cancer susceptibility

Bladder cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the urinary system. There are a large number of bladder cancer patients globally, concentrated in the middle-aged and old-aged population, and some of them are first diagnosed with muscle invasive bladder cancer or metastatic bladder cancer, with a poor prognosis. In China, bladder cancer has become one of the most important tumors of the urinary system, with its incidence and mortality increasing year by year. The susceptibility of bladder cancer is affected by a combination of environmental and genetic factors, similar to the global trend. Smoking is considered to be one of the most important environmental risk factors for bladder cancer, which is closely related to the pathogenesis of bladder cancer and is one of the major public health problems in China. In terms of genetics, previous studies have shown that polymorphisms in cell cycle regulatory genes, tumor angiogenesis regulatory genes, DNA damage repair genes, and carcinogen metabolism enzyme regulatory genes can significantly affect the risk of bladder cancer in individuals. In recent years, with the development of environmental genomics research, the joint effect of smoking and gene variants on the susceptibility to bladder cancer has also received widespread attention. Exploring the joint effects will help to identify potential susceptibility biomarkers of bladder cancer and provide an important theoretical basis for its prevention and control. In this review, the joint effects of smoking and gene variants on bladder cancer susceptibility were elaborated.