DNA Repair by ERCC1 in Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer and Cisplatin-Based Adjuvant Chemotherapy

Adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy improves survival among patients with completely resected non-small-cell lung cancer, but there is no validated clinical or biologic predictor of the benefit of chemotherapy.

We used immunohistochemical analysis to determine the expression of the excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) protein in operative specimens of non-small-cell lung cancer. The patients had been enrolled in the International Adjuvant Lung Cancer Trial, thereby allowing a comparison of the effect of adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy on survival, according to ERCC1 expression. Overall survival was analyzed with a Cox model adjusted for clinical and pathological factors.