Role of ERCC1 variants in response to chemotherapy and clinical outcome of advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) and xeroderma pigmentosum-F (XPF) in the nucleotide excision repair pathway have been effectively repairing DNA damage induced by chemotherapeutic agents. We conducted a cohort study to assess the associations of ERCC1 and XPF polymorphisms with response to platinum-based chemotherapy and clinical outcome of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). One hundred eighty-seven NSCLC cases treated with platinum-based chemotherapy were prospectively analyzed. The predictive value of four SNPs in ERCC1 and two SNPs in XPF in patient's response and survival related to platinum-based chemotherapy were analyzed using χ ² tests, Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazards regression. The overall chemotherapy response rate for treatment was 51.18 %. One hundred eighty-seven patients were followed up, and the median survival time is 17.6 months (ranged from 1 to 50 months). A total of 106 patients (56.68 %) died from NSCLC during the follow-up period. Carriers of the rs3212986 AA and A allele had a borderline significantly lower response rate to the chemotherapy. In the Cox proportional hazards model, patients carrying the ERCC1 rs3212986 AA genotype were significantly associated with increased risk of death from NSCLC when compared with those with CC genotype as a reference variable. This study reported that variants in ERCC1 can be used as a prognostic maker to platinum-based chemotherapy in NSCLC patients.