The Prognostic Value of Excision Repair Cross-Complementation Group 1 (ERCC1) in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) Receiving Platinum-Based Chemotherapy: Evidence from Meta-Analysis

Recently, the correlation between the efficacy of platinum-based chemotherapy and ERCC1 expression in patients with SCLC has attracted wide-spread attention, and a lot of investigations have been conducted, whereas conflicting results were presented. Therefore, we performed the present meta-analysis of eligible studies to derive a more precise evaluation of the association between ERCC1 expression and the clinical outcome in SCLC patients receiving platinum-based chemotherapy. A literature search for relevant studies was conducted in the electronic databases of PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science. The inclusive criteria were SCLC patients treated by platinum-based chemotherapy, and evaluated the relationship between ERCC1 expression and the clinical outcomes [including overall response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS) or progression-free survival (PFS)]. Odds ratio (OR) or hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated to assess the risk. A total of nine studies including 1129 patients were included in final analysis. Our analysis indicated that positive/high ERCC1 expression was associated with unfavorable OS (HR = 1.18, 95%CI = 1.02–1.37) and PFS (HR = 1.46, 95%CI = 1.14–1.88). Subgroup analysis according to disease stage suggested the significant relationship was found in limited stage (LS-SCLC), but not in extensive stage (ES-SCLC). However, no significant association was found between ERCC1 expression and ORR. Our analysis suggested ERCC1 expression may be a prognostic factor in SCLC patients receiving platinum-based chemotherapy, especially for LS-SCLC.