Original Article Predictive Value of ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, And
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Am J Cancer Res 2018;8(10):2096-2105 www.ajcr.us /ISSN:2156-6976/ajcr0085053 Original Article Predictive value of ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, and glutathione S-Transferase Pi expression for the efficacy and safety of FOLFIRINOX in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer Shun Tezuka1, Makoto Ueno1, Satoshi Kobayashi1, Manabu Morimoto1, Shinichi Ohkawa1, Akane Hirotani1, Yuichiro Tozuka1, Satoshi Moriya1, Yoshiyasu Nakamura2, Yohei Miyagi2, Makoto Sugimori3, Shin Maeda3 1Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Medical Oncology, Kanagawa Cancer Center, Yokohama, Japan; 2De- partment of Molecular Pathology and Genetics, Kanagawa Cancer Center Research Institute, Yokohama, Japan; 3Department of Gastroenterology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan Received September 4, 2018; Accepted September 14, 2018; Epub October 1, 2018; Published October 15, 2018 Abstract: The platinum-based chemotherapy regimen FOLFIRINOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan, and oxali- platin) is currently used as a standard treatment for patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer. FOLFIRINOX is associated with severe toxicities, including neutropenia, febrile neutropenia, and anorexia; however, there are cur- rently no reliable biomarkers to predict its efficacy and safety. Several studies of patients with various cancers have shown that tumor expression of excision repair cross-complementing (ERCC) proteins and glutathione S-transferase Pi (GSTPi) correlates with the response to platinum-based chemotherapies. Therefore, in this study, we examined the associations between expression of ERCC proteins and GSTPi and the safety and efficacy of FOLFIRINOX in 34 patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer. ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, and GSTPi expression were examined by im- munohistochemical staining of tumor specimens and the results were correlated with overall survival, progression- free survival, response rate, disease control rate, and the frequency of grade 3-4 neutropenia and non-hematologic toxicities. We found that ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, and GSTPi were expressed in tumor samples from 64%, 24%, 18%, and 64% of patients, respectively. Notably, there were no statistically significant associations between the expres- sion pattern of any of the proteins and either the clinical outcomes or the frequency of grade 3-4 neutropenia or grade 3-4 anorexia. Collectively, these data indicate that tumor expression of ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, and GSTPi does not predict the safety or efficacy of FOLFIRINOX in patients with pancreatic cancer. Keywords: Pancreatic cancer, FOLFIRINOX, predictive factor, ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, GSTPi, immunohistochemis- try, biomarker Introduction FOLFIRINOX is associated with severe toxici- ties, including neutropenia, febrile neutropenia, The effectiveness of the platinum-based regi- thrombocytopenia, anorexia, fatigue, and diar- men FOLFIRINOX (oxaliplatin, irinotecan, flu- rhea, which frequently require dose reduction orouracil, and leucovorin) as first-line chemo- or treatment interruption. A phase 2 study of therapy in patients with metastatic pancreatic FOLFIRINOX in Japanese patients with pancre- cancer was first reported in 2011 [1]. In Japan, atic cancer reported high frequencies of toxici- FOLFIRINOX obtained regulatory approval for ties, including grade 3 or 4 neutropenia (77.8% the treatment of pancreatic cancer in Decem- of patients), febrile neutropenia (22.2%), and ber 2013. FOLFIRINOX and nab-paclitaxel plus anorexia (11.1%) [3]. These side effects could gemcitabine are both currently employed as lead limited use of FOLFIRINOX. Recently, a standard chemotherapy regimens for unresect- modified FOLFIRINOX regimen showed satis- able pancreatic cancer in patients with good factory efficacy with less toxicity in pancreatic Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group perfor- cancer patients [4-6]. However, there have be- mance status (ECOG PS) [2]. en no direct comparisons of the safety and ef- Relationship between ERCC and FOLFIRINOX efficacy for pancreatic cancer Table 1. Clinical characteristics of the pa- response to platinum chemotherapies. Another tients (n = 34) potential biomarker is glutathione S-transfer- N (%) ase Pi (GSTPi, also known as GSTP1). GSTs are Age, median (range) 61 (42-73) a family of detoxification enzymes found in all aerobic organisms and play protective roles in Gender preventing cellular damage from toxic com- Male 20 (59) pounds, including chemotherapeutic agents Female 14 (41) [21]. Polymorphisms have been detected in Line many of the genes encoding the main GST iso- 1st line therapy 26 (76) enzymes, including GSTPi. One polymorphism 2nd line therapy 3 (9) in GSTPi is reportedly related to the sensitivity 3rd line therapy 5 (15) of colorectal cancer to platinum-based com- UICC Stage pounds [22]. III 3 (9) IV 31 (91) There have been few reports examining the correlation between ERCC1, ERCC2, ERCC4, Performance status (ECOG) and GSTPi expression and the response to plat- 0 16 (47) inum-based chemotherapies in patients with 1 18 (53) pancreatic cancer [16, 18, 23]. To address this Initial dose modification 17 (50) knowledge gap, we examined the expression of Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio ≥5 8 (24) these four candidate biomarkers in pancrea- Abbreviations: ECOG, Eastern Cooperative Oncology tic cancer specimens from patients treated Group; UICC, Union for International Cancer Control. with FOLFIRINOX and investigated their rela- tionship to various clinicopathological factors, ficacy of FOLFIRINOX, modified FOLFIRINOX, including patient outcomes. and nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine, making it Material and methods difficult to select the optimal treatment regi- men for pancreatic cancer patients. There is Patients and study design thus great interest in discovering biomarkers that can predict the efficacy and safety of This was a single-center, retrospective cohort FOLFIRINOX in this disease. study of 34 patients with unresectable pancre- DNA repair is an important role in resistance atic cancer who started treatment with FOLFI- to platinum agents that act inhibiting DNA RINOX between December 2013 and Septem- replication and transcription by binding to a ber 2015. All patients were selected for this DNA molecule in the form of platinum-DNA- study based on histologically confirmed pan- adducts [7]. Excision repair cross-complement- creatic adenocarcinoma and the availability of ing (ERCC) protein 1, ERCC2, and ERCC4 are adequate tissue derived from (i) endoscopic key proteins involved in the nucleotide exci- ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration sion repair pathway, which is a major compo- (EUS-FNA) of the primary pancreatic tumor or nent of the DNA repair response [8, 9]. Previous lymph node metastasis, (ii) fine-needle biopsy work identified a correlation between expres- from liver metastasis, (iii) forceps biopsy of sion of ERCC1 protein or mRNA, as measured bile duct-invasive tumor or duodenum-invasive by immunohistochemistry (IHC) or reverse-tran- tumor, or (iv) previously resected surgical speci- scription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) mens from primary tumors. Clinical data were respectively, and the response to platinum obtained by retrospective chart review. All pa- agents, including oxaliplatin, in patients with tients had an ECOG PS score of 0 or 1 [2] and gastrointestinal cancer, ovarian cancer, and had adequate bone marrow and renal funct- non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) [10-19]. A ion. Evaluation of the response to chemothera- single nucleotide polymorphism in ERCC2 (Lys- py (complete response [CR], partial response 751Gln) is associated with the survival of pa- [PR], stable disease [SD], and progressive dis- tients with colon cancer treated by oxaliplatin- ease [PD]) was based on the Response Eva- based regimens [20], supporting the possible luation Criteria In Solid Tumors guidelines [24]. utility of ERCC proteins as biomarkers of the All patients provided informed consent. This 2097 Am J Cancer Res 2018;8(10):2096-2105 Relationship between ERCC and FOLFIRINOX efficacy for pancreatic cancer lin and dehydrated for mount- ing. Evaluation of immunohisto- chemical staining Protein staining was assess- ed independently by two in- vestigators who were blinded to the patients’ identities and clinical outcomes. If the in- vestigators’ opinions differed, the final result was decided by consensus. Slides were analyzed by light microscopy. Staining was scored for inten- sity (1, weak; 2, moderate; 3, strong) and the percentage of cells positively stained (1, 1% Figure 1. Immunohistochemical staining of patient specimens. A-D. Repre- to 9.9%; 2, 10% to <49.9%; 3, sentative images of immunohistochemical staining of the four proteins to illustrate typical intensity and percentage staining scores (both on a scale of 50% to 100%). ERCC1, ERC- 1-3). A. Excision repair cross-complementing (ERCC): intensity score 1, per- C2, and ERCC4 expression centage score 3. B. ERCC2: intensity score 3, percentage score 2. C. ERCC4: was considered to be positive intensity score 3, percentage score 2. D. Glutathione S-transferase Pi, inten- when the intensity and per- sity score 3, percentage score 3. Scale bar = 500 μm. centage scores were 2 or 3 and the tumor cells showed study was approved by the Institutional Review nuclear staining. GSTPi expression was con- Board of Kanagawa Cancer Center. sidered to be positive when the intensity and percentage scores were 2 or 3 and the tumor Immunohistochemistry cells showed nuclear or cytoplasmic staining. IHC was performed using standard