MYC Up-regulation Is a Useful Biomarker for Preoperative Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Combined With Anti-EGFR in Liver Metastasis from Colorectal Cancer

Background/aim At present, there are no biomarkers to predict the effects of molecular targeted drugs in patients with CRC with liver metastasis. Thus, we performed this study to explore potential biomarkers for these patients. Materials and methods We obtained cancer tissue specimens from liver metastasis-bearing CRC patients who received the following preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapies with molecular targeted drugs: i) no therapy (n=3), ii) 5-FU+oxaliplatin+anti-EGFR (n=3), iii) and 5-FU+oxaliplatin+anti-VEGF (n=3). Results We investigated the RNA expression of 84 genes related to cancer drug resistance using an RT-PCR array. The MYC gene was the only gene that was significantly up-regulated in CRC tissue specimens from anti-EGFR group in comparison to the anti-VEGF group. Conclusion MYC up-regulation in the primary CRC tissues may be a potentially useful biomarker for selecting anti-EGFR combination therapy in neoadjuvant chemotherapy for CRC with liver metastasis.