Evaluation of expression of ERCC1 in hepatocellular cancer.

Abstract

e14685 Background: Hepatocellular cancer (HCC) is a common cancer, especially in Asia. The pathogenesis of this disease is multifactorial and includes many pathways. Excisional repair cross complementation1 (ERCC1) is a DNA repair enzyme and existence of it is implicated in worsening prognosis in cisplatin treated lung cancer patients. The expression rate of ERCC1 in HCC is not known. Herein we studied this to find out whether a subset of HCC patients can be identified to benefit from cisplatin. Methods: Sixty one patients with HCC who had enough tissue to do immunohistochemistry are identified in three institutions. There were no exclusion criteria other than unavailability of tissue blocks. Since this study's only intention was to identify the presence or absence of the ERCC1, no data on patient characteristics is compiled. Immunohistochemical staining was performed manually using the standard streptavidin-biotin-peroxidase method. Monoclonal anti- ERCC 1 (D-10) from Santa Cruz Biotechnology ( Santa Cruz, CA) is used. Results: Out of 61 patients (< 2%) had ERCC1 expression. Conclusions: ERCC1 expression in HCC is very low. Although around 10% of HCC patients respond to cisplatin, this is unlikely to be due to ERCC1 negativity. Pathways other than ERCC1 should be searched to find ways to help these patients' treatment strategies. No significant financial relationships to disclose.