Genetic polymorphisms in ERCC1 and ERCC2 genes are associated with response to chemotherapy in osteosarcoma patients among Chinese population: a meta-analysis

There existed controversies about the association between the response to chemotherapy for osteosarcoma (OS) patients and the genetic polymorphisms in excision repair cross-complementation group (ERCC1 and ERCC2) genes. We aimed to perform a meta-analysis to comprehensively evaluate the association.

We searched multiple databases for literature retrieval including the PubMED (1966 ∼ 2017), Embase (1980 ∼ 2017), and the Web of science (1945 ∼ 2017). The overall odds ratios(OR) and their corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for the three polymorphisms under the dominant, recessive, and allelic models.

From six eligible articles in our study, we found that for ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism, a significant association was detected between the chemotherapy response and the polymorphism under all three models (dominant model: OR = 2.015, P = 0.005; recessive model: OR = 1.791, P = 0.003; allelic model: OR = 1.677, P = 0.003), and OS patients carrying C allele in rs11615 polymorphism were more likely to response to chemotherapy. In terms of ERCC2 rs1799793 polymorphism, this polymorphism was significantly associated with the response to chemotherapy for OS patients under recessive model (OR = 1.337, P = 0.036), and patients with AG + AA genotype in rs1799793 polymorphism were more appropriate to receive chemotherapy. With respect to ERCC2 rs13181 polymorphism, this polymorphism was not correlated with the response to chemotherapy for OS patients under all three models.

Our meta-analysis suggested that among Chinese population, the rs11615 and rs1799793 polymorphisms were significantly correlated with the response to chemotherapy for patients with OS, and patients with CC or TC + CC genotypes in ERCC1 rs11615 polymorphism or AG + AA genotype in ERCC2 rs1799793 polymorphism were more suitable for chemotherapy.