Predicive and prognostic significance of ERCC1 in patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma treated with cisplatin and gemcitabin combination

Introduction: Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer related death both men and women. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) platin based chemotherapy is the standart of care in advanced disease. Given the limited efficacy with toxicity, some clues are needed to determine who are the candidates for treatment. We aimed to determine predictive and prognostic siginificance of ERCC1 Patients and methods: Twenty six patients having advanced lung adenocarcinoma , treated with cisplatin-gemcitabine in medical oncology departments of İnönü University were included in the study. Medical records have been evaluated retrospectively and whom having tumoral tissue available for immunohistochemical staining were selected. Results: ERCC1 were divided into 4 groups according to the severity and distribution of staining. 0 in 6 patients, 8 patients +1, 5 patients +2, +3 found in 7 patients.0 and +1 values of ERCC1 were considered ERCC1 negative.+2 and +3 values of ERCC1 were considered ERCC1 positive. At the end of the study there were complete response in one (3,6%), partial response in two (7,7%), stable disease in five (19,2%), and progressive disease in 18 (69,2%) patients. Halve of the patients were died, and the other halve were still alive at the end of the study.Overall survival of patients were 15 (3-44) months. progression-free survival was 9 (2-25) months. In our study, there was no significant difference between ERCC1 with overall survival and disease-free survival. Conclusion: Concordant with the literature ERCC1 negative patients did better than the negative ones in terms of response to treatment and survival. The difference was not statistically significant but this is not only a result of small number of patients, as conflicting results were reported also in the literature.