Predictive value of excision repair cross-complementation group 1 protein in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinomas receiving cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

Objective: To investigate the ability of excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) protein to predict cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) response in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Materials and Methods: The clinical data of 205 patients with locoregionally advanced NPC, who received cisplatin-based CCRT, were analyzed retrospectively. Immunohistochemical analysis was used to assess the ERCC1 expression in nasopharyngeal tumor tissues. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards analyses were performed to evaluate the association between ERCC1 expression and failure-free survival (FFS), overall survival (OS), locoregional-FFS (L-FFS), and distant-FFS (D-FFS). Results: Our results revealed that although the overall response rate in patients with high-ERCC1 expression (97.3%) and those with low-ERCC1 expression (100.0%) were not statistically different, but treatment-sensitive group displayed significantly lower ERCC1 expression in comparison to the treatment-resistant group (P = 0.001). The Kaplan-Meier plots revealed that the low-ERCC1 expression was significantly associated with better L-FFS, FFS, and OS of locally advanced NPC patients receiving cisplatin-based CCRT. Both univariate and multivariate analysis demonstrated that the ERCC1 expression, tumor node metastasis stage and performance status were independent predictors of OS and FFS. Conclusion: ERCC1 expression may be a useful predictive marker in patients with locoregionally advanced NPC, who are receiving cisplatin-based CCRT.