Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignancy with remarkably high prevalence in East Asia. Lines of evidence have suggested the involvement of genetic lesions in the etiology of NPC, together with the contributions of Epstein-Barr virus infection and environmental exposures. Linkage and association studies, either based on candidate genes or genome-wide levels, have been conducted to dissect the genetic variants that contribute to NPC risk. This review summarizes the current findings of genetic susceptibility to NPC, and points out some future challenges on discovery of other risk variants to explain the missing heritability of NPC.
Keywords: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV); Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC); association study; genetic susceptibility; linkage study.