Background

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks as the third most common cancer and the third most killing cancer worldwide [1]. The addition of oxaliplatin to fluorouracil (FOLFOX) or capecitabine (CAPOX) has become a fundamental component of chemotherapeutic regimens and chemoradiation in adjuvant treatment of CRC cancer. Excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) encodes an enzyme that is essential for the efficient repair of DNA damage induced by platinum compounds including Oxaliplatin.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the role of ERCC1 as a predictive and prognostic marker in colorectal patients receiving oxaliplatin based chemotherapy and chemoradiation.

Patients and Methods

100 annotated stage III CRC patients were prepared as immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis of ERCC1 protein expression. All of the patients received oxaliplatin based chemotherapy.

Results

Analysis of data showed that high ERCC1 expression was significantly associated with early treatment failure and disease free survival among patient with stage III CRC.

Conclusion

High ERCC1 expression was an independent predictor factor of early treatment failure (P < 0.018) and associated with lower disease free survival (P = 0.004).