High ERCC1 expression is associated with platinum-resistance, but not survival in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer

The present study aimed to investigate the association between excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) expression and clinical resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy or clinical characteristics, including survival time, in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). ERCC1 expression was determined by immunohistochemical staining in 92 tumor specimens from patients with EOC. The effect of ERCC1 expression on progression-free survival time (PFS) or overall survival time (OS), and its association with clinical resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy was investigated by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, Cox regression analysis and the chi(2) test. Of 92 patients with EOC, 89.13% (82/92) had ERCC1-positive tumors. The positive rate was significantly higher in platinum-resistant patients compared with those who were platinum-responding (P<0.05). The PFS and median OS were 12 and 30 months, respectively, in ERCC1 high expression patients, and 17 and 39 months, respectively, in ERCC1 low expression patients. However, there was no statistically significant difference in PFS (P=0.099) or OS (P=0.103) between the high and low expression groups. Furthermore, it was identified that ERCC1 was not an independent factor affecting the prognosis of patients with EOC based on Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. These results demonstrate that high ERCC1 expression is associated with resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy, but not with survival time, and ERCC1 protein expression is not an independent factor or the only factor affecting the prognosis of patients with EOC.