Ghrelin, an endogenous ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), has two major functions: the stimulation of the growth hormone production and the stimulation of food intake. Accumulating evidence also indicates a role of ghrelin in cancer development.
Pairwise tagging was used to select the 11 polymorphisms and the selected polymorphisms were genotyped in cases and controls from the Czech Republic and further verified on the German population. T allele of rs27647 SNP exerted a protective borderline effect (Ptrend = 0.004).