Patients with ERCC1-negative locally advanced esophageal cancers may benefit from preoperative chemoradiotherapy

To assess the significance of excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) expression as a predictive marker, we analyzed the effects of preoperative chemoradiotherapy on survival relative to ERCC1 status in patients with locally advanced operable esophageal cancer.

Paraffin-embedded pretreatment tumor specimens, collected by endoscopic biopsy from patients treated with surgery alone or with preoperative chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery, were immunohistochemically assayed for ERCC1 expression.

Of the 175 patients, 152 biopsy specimens were available for immunohistochemical analysis. Based on a median ERCC1 expression score of 1, we divided the samples into ERCC1-positive (score >1; 71 patients, 47%) and ERCC1-negative (score

Patients with ERCC1-negative operable esophageal tumors show a greater benefit from preoperative chemoradiotherapy followed by esophagectomy than those who undergo esophagectomy alone.