Immunohistochemistry Biomarkers Predict Survival in Stage II/III Gastric Cancer Patients: From a Prospective Clinical Trial

• Published in: Cancer research and treatment 2019, 51(2), , pp.819-831
• Main Authors: Kim, Min Hwan, Zhang, Xianglan, Jung, Minkyu, Jung, Inkyung, Park, Hyung Soon, Beom, Seung-Hoon, Kim, Hyo Song, Rha, Sun Young, Kim, Hyunki, Choi, Yoon Young, Son, Taeil, Kim, Hyoung-Il, Cheong, Jae-Ho, Hyung, Woo Jin, Noh, Sung Hoon, Chung, Hyun Cheol
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; B7-H1 Antigen - metabolism; Biomarkers, Tumor; Clinical Trials, Phase III as Topic; Combined Modality Therapy; DNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Endonucleases - metabolism; Female; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Kaplan-Meier Estimate; Male; Middle Aged; Multicenter Studies as Topic; Neoplasm Staging; Original; Prognosis; Proportional Hazards Models; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Stomach Neoplasms - metabolism; Stomach Neoplasms - mortality; Stomach Neoplasms - pathology; Stomach Neoplasms - therapy; 의약학
• ISSN: 1598-2998; 2005-9256
• DOI: 10.4143/crt.2018.331

Identification of biomarkers to predict recurrence risk is essential to improve adjuvant treatment strategies in stage II/III gastric cancer patients. This study evaluated biomarkers for predicting survival after surgical resection. This post-hoc analysis evaluated patients from the CLASSIC trial who underwent D2 gastrectomy with or without adjuvant chemotherapy (capecitabine plus oxaliplatin) at the Yonsei Cancer Center. Tumor expressions of thymidylate synthase (TS), excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1), and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) were evaluated by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining to determine their predictive values. Among 139 patients, IHC analysis revealed high tumor expression of TS (n=22, 15.8%), ERCC1 (n=23, 16.5%), and PD-L1 (n=42, 30.2%) in the subset of patients. Among all patients, high TS expression tended to predict poor disease-free survival (DFS; hazard ratio [HR], 1.80; p=0.053), whereas PD-L1 positivity was associated with favorable DFS (HR, 0.33; p=0.001) and overall survival (OS; HR, 0.38; p=0.009) in multivariate Cox analysis. In the subgroup analysis, poor DFS was independently predicted by high TS expression (HR, 2.51; p=0.022) in the adjuvant chemotherapy subgroup (n=66). High PD-L1 expression was associated with favorable DFS (HR, 0.25; p=0.011) and OS (HR, 0.22; p=0.015) only in the surgery-alone subgroup (n=73). The prognostic impact of high ERCC1 expression was not significant in the multivariate Cox analysis. This study shows that high TS expression is a predictive factor for worse outcomes on capecitabine plus oxaliplatin adjuvant chemotherapy, whereas PD-L1 expression is a favorable prognostic factor in locally advanced gastric cancer patients.