Role of DNA repair gene polymorphisms in the efficiency of platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: Cisplatin-based adjuvant treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has become standard, thanks to the studies that have shown a significant survival advantage. The identification of patients who could benefit from this adjuvant treatment would allow ineffective and toxic administrations to be avoided. Immunohistochemical expression of the excision repair cross-complementation group (ERCC)-1 protein has been associated with response to platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with NSCLC, and some polymorphisms of the genes involved in DNA repair have been shown to be associated with survival in advanced NSCLC.

Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate the progression-free survival and tolerability of adjuvant treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with NSCLC, according to common DNA repair gene polymorphisms and ERCC1 expression.

Methods: We investigated the association of three DNA repair gene polymorphisms - Asn118Asn in ERCC1 (rs11615), Lys751Gln in ERCC2 (rs13181), and Asp1104His in ERCC5 (rs17655) - with the progression-free survival of 85 patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy after surgery for NSCLC.

Results: We did not find significant associations between any of these polymorphisms and progression-free survival, nor did we observe any difference in progression-free survival according to ERCC1 expression.

Conclusion: The previously reported impact of DNA repair gene polymorphisms on platinum-based chemotherapy treatment of advanced NSCLC was not observed in our study in the adjuvant setting.