Excision repair cross-complementing group 1 (ERCC1) may predict the efficacy of chemoradiotherapy for bladder cancer - Abstract

Urology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan.

Chemoradiation therapy (CRT) is now widely recognized as bladder-preserving therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). However, some patients who fail CRT may miss the chance to be cured by cystectomy. Therefore, it is important to select patients with MIBC who are expected to have a good response to CRT. Several reports indicate that the excision repair cross-complementing group 1 (ERCC1) gene is associated with resistance to cisplatin and radiation therapy. In this study, we examined the correlation between ERCC1 and CRT in vitro and in vivo in bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer cell lines T24, 5637, Cl8-2 (multi-drug-resistant subline of T24), and CDDP10-3 (cisplatin-resistant subline of T24) were used for in vitro assays to measure ERCC1 expression level and growth inhibition with cisplatin or irradiation (IR). We then examined by immunohistochemistry whether ERCC1 nuclear staining correlates with the efficacy of CRT using cisplatin in 22 patients with MIBC.

Cl8-2 cells expressed ERCC1 mRNA 5.96-fold higher than did T24. Cl8-2 and CDDP10-3 were more resistant to cisplatin or IR than was T24. Resistance to IR, but not to cisplatin, was erased by suppressing ERCC1 using siRNA in both Cl8-2 and CDDP10-3 cells. In immunohistochemistry with ERCC1, six of eight positive cases did not have complete response to CRT, whereas 12 of 14 negative cases had complete response. Sensitivity and specificity were 75% and 85.7%, respectively (p = 0.008).

Although further study is needed, ERCC1 expression level may predict the efficacy of CRT for MIBC.

Written by:
Kawashima A, Nakayama M, Kakuta Y, Abe T, Hatano K, Mukai M, Nagahara A, Oka D, Nakai Y, Takayama H, Yoshioka T, Hoshida Y, Itatani H, Nishimura K, Nonomura N.   Are you the author?

Reference: Clin Cancer Res. 2010 Dec 21. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-10-1963

PubMed Abstract
PMID: 21177407

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