[ERCC1 and lung cancer]

ERCC1 plays a critical role in the repair of lesions in DNA induced by cisplatin. It has been demonstrated that, in patients with resected NSCLC, those with ERCC1-negative tumours had greater benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy than patients with ERCC1-positive tumours. On the other hand, patients with ERCC1-positive tumours have a better prognosis. ERCC1 can be evaluated either by the level of protein expression on immunohistochemical analysis or by quantification of its mRNA expression. At present ERCC1 appears to be a promising biomarker for predicting the benefit of cisplatin based chemotherapy and its modulation could allow sensitisation of tumour cells to this drug. Its use in daily clinical practice requires a further stage of prospective validation studies which are already in progress in patients both with completely resected NSCL or metastatic disease.