Expression of excision repair cross complementing group 1 and prognosis in adrenocortical carcinoma patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy

Abstract

Therapeutic progress in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is severely hampered by its low incidence. Platinum-based chemotherapies are the most effective cytotoxic treatment regimens in ACC but response rates remain n=45), objective response to platinum compounds was observed in 3/21 patients (14.3%) with high ERCC1 expression and in 7/24 patients (29.2%) with low ERCC1 expression (P=0.23). ERCC1 expression was strongly correlated with overall survival after platinum treatment (median: eight months in patients with high ERCC1 versus 24 months in low ERCC1 expression, hazard ratio (HR) 2.95 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.4–6.2), P=0.004). Multivariate analysis confirmed that high ERCC1 expression was a predictive factor for poor prognosis in platinum treated patients (HR 2.2, 95% CI 1.0–4.5, P=0.038). Our findings suggest that ERCC1 expression is the first factor for predicting survival in ACC patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy.