Characteristics of Gastric Carcinomas With High ERCC1 Expression and the Prognostic Value of ERCC1 Expression

Background/aim We aimed to evaluate the characteristics of gastric carcinoma with high excision repair cross complementing 1 (ERCC1) expression and the prognostic value of ERCC1 expression. Materials and methods ERCC1 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 309 surgically resected gastric carcinoma specimens using a tissue microarray. Cancer-related survival was analysed using competing risk analysis. Results Compared to ERCC1-low gastric carcinomas, ERCC1-high gastric carcinomas showed less local invasion (p=0.0013), lower N stage (p=0.0302), earlier pTNM stage (p=0.0003), and less frequent recurrence (p=0002). Patients with ERCC1-high gastric carcinoma showed lower cumulative incidence function estimate of cancer-related death [3.37; 95% confidence intervaI (CI)=0.89-8.75] than did those with ERCC1-low gastric carcinoma (17.12; 95% CI=12.24-22.69; p-value by Gray's test=0.0012). Adjusted proportional sub-distribution hazard ratio for cancer-related death in the patients with ERCC1-high tumour was 0.272 (95% CI=0.084-0.878; p=0.0295). Conclusion High ERCC1 expression may be an independent positive prognostic marker for gastric carcinoma.