Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology Advance Access originally published online on November 22, 2005
Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 2005 35(12):714-719; doi:10.1093/jjco/hyi194
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© 2005 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
Biological Markers as a Predictor for Response and Prognosis of Unresectable Gastric Cancer Patients Treated with Irinotecan and Cisplatin
1 Division of Digestive Endoscopy and Gastrointestinal Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, 2 Pathology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute East, Kashiwa, Chiba, 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Misawa City Hospital, Aomori, 4 Department of Medicine, Yamagata Prefectural Central Hospital, Yamagata, 5 Department of Medicine, Saku General Hospital, Nagano, 6 Department of Internal Medicine, National Shikoku Cancer Center, Matsuyama and 7 Health Service, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
For reprints and all correspondence: Fumio Nagashima, MD, Department of Clinical Oncology, Saitama Medical School, 38 Morohongo, Moroyamama, Iruma-gun, Saitama, 350-0495, Japan. E-mail: fnagashi{at}saitama-med.ac.jp
Received June 23, 2005; accepted October 9, 2005
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Abstract |
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 TOP Abstract INTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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Background: Previously we reported that immunohistochemical examination of p53, bcl-2, glutathione S-transferase-
(GST-), thymidylate synthase (TS) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in biopsy samples was a useful method for predicting clinical outcome of gastric cancer patients treated with 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin. Here, we investigated if these biological markers can predict chemoresponse and survival of unresectable gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan and cisplatin. Methods: The subjects were 55 unresectable gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan (70 mg/m2, Days 1 and 15) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2, Day 1). Expression of p53, bcl-2, VEGF was examined immunohistochemically in biopsy samples.
Results: The overall response rate and the median survival time were 55% (30/55) and 321 days, respectively. Thirty patients with intestinal-type adenocarcinoma survived longer than 25 patients with diffuse-type (median survival time: 446, 259 days, P = 0.013). The favorable phenotypes for chemoresponse were p53-negative, bcl-2-negative and VEGF-positive, which were in accordance with previous findings. The response rate was significantly correlated with the total number of these favorable phenotypes (P = 0.043). The 39 patients having 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes (p53-negative, bcl-2-negative and VEGF-positive) survived longer than the remaining 16 patients (median survival time: 444, 259 days, P = 0.021). In the Cox model, the number of the favorable phenotypes showed a tendency to correlate with survival after adjustment for potentially prognostic factors such as histological type or performance status (P = 0.070).
Conclusions: Immunohistochemical examination of biological markers may be useful in predicting the clinical outcome of unresectable gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan and cisplatin.
Key Words: gastric cancer • chemotherapy • p53 • bcl-2 • VEGF
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INTRODUCTION |
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TOPAbstractINTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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Cisplatin is an active agent against gastric cancer (1), and several chemotherapy regimens including cisplatin have been reported to show high response rates (2–5). Irinotecan, which inhibits DNA topoisomerase I, is also active against various malignancies including gastric cancer (6). Marked synergism, lack of cross-resistance, different mechanisms of action and relatively different profiles of adverse reactions between irinotecan and cisplatin have encouraged the combination of these agents, and it has shown promising results against gastric and lung cancers. In a phase II study for metastatic gastric cancer, the response rate was 59% and the median survival time was 322 days in 29 patients who had not received previous chemotherapy (7). However, in recent phase III studies, regimens of combined chemotherapy including cisplatin have failed to demonstrate a survival benefit compared with the single agent 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) (8–10), which had been developed more than 40 years ago (11). The severe toxicity of these cisplatin-containing regimens seems to be one of the reasons for no survival benefit despite the higher response rates as compared with 5-FU alone. It appears that we need to select an optimal regimen for each patient by predicting the chemotherapeutic efficacy. Recently, remarkable advances in the basic research have led to the identification of many biological markers indicative of sensitivity to some antineoplastic agents, some of which have been proved to have clinical impact.
Previously we reported that immunohistochemical examination of biological markers [p53, bcl-2, glutathione S-transferase- (GST-), thymidylate synthase (TS) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)] in biopsy samples was useful method for predicting the effects of chemotherapy. Our report showed that VEGF-positive, TS-negative, p53-negative, GST--negative, bcl-2-negative were favorable phenotypes in terms of chemoresponse, and the number of favorable phenotypes was a good indicator of both response and survival in patients with unresectable gastric cancer treated with 5-FU and cisplatin (12). Mutant p53 and bcl-2 proteins protect cancer cells from apoptosis induced by many antineoplastic agents and confer cytotoxic drug resistance (13–15). GST- is an enzyme that plays an important role in cellular detoxification, and increases in this enzyme have been associated with resistance to antineoplastic agents such as CDDP (16–18). Because drug delivery is important for the sensitivity of tumors to antineoplastic agents, VEGF may contribute to chemoresponse through the promotion of angiogenesis and/or vascular permeability (19,20). In the present study, we investigated the relationship between immunohistochemical expression of VEGF, p53, bcl-2, GST- and effects of chemotherapy in patients with unresectable gastric cancer treated with irinotecan and cisplatin. TS was not examined because 5-FU was not included in this regimen.
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PATIENTS AND METHODS |
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TOPAbstractINTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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STUDY POPULATION
A total of 55 gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan and cisplatin were retrospectively included in this exploratory analysis; the study subjects included nine patients entered into a phase II study of combination chemotherapy (7), which is one of experimental arms of ongoing randomized phase III trial in Japan (JCOG 9912), and 46 patients consecutively selected to be suitable for combination chemotherapy using the same regimen in clinical practice at the National Cancer Center Hospital East and its affiliated institutions. All the patients fulfilled the recruitment criteria used in JCOG 9912 except (viii): in brief, (i) histological confirmation of gastric cancer; (ii) Eastern Clinical Oncology Group scale performance status (PS) of 2 or better; (iii) age of 75 years or younger; (iv) no previous chemotherapy; (v) adequate bone marrow, liver and renal function; (vi) no other active malignancy; (vii) no severe medical complication; and (viii) primary tumors from which it was possible to obtain a sufficient amount of cancerous tissue for examining biological markers before chemotherapy.
TREATMENT SCHEDULE
The treatment schedule of the combination of irinotecan and cisplatin and dose modification were the same as in the phase II study (7), briefly, drip infusion of irinotecan (70 mg/m2, day 1 and 15) and cisplatin (80 mg/m2, day 1) with adequate hydration. This treatment was repeated every 4 weeks until disease progression, patient refusal or unacceptable adverse reactions.
EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTS OF CHEMOTHERAPY
Responses to chemotherapy in measurable lesions were evaluated by the standard World Health Organization response criteria (21). For primary lesions, responses were evaluated according to the criteria proposed by the Japanese Research Society for Gastric Cancer (22) using either gastroscopy or barium gastrography. Overall response was defined as the sum of the number of complete and partial responses. All patients were followed for at least 1 year after the initiation of chemotherapy, and survival time was defined as the period from the date of initiation of chemotherapy to the date of death due to any cause or the date of last confirmation of survival.
IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL EXAMINATION
Immunohistochemical staining was performed in the same way as in our previous study (12). All immunohistochemical examinations were performed on tissue sections of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded biopsy specimens from primary tumors. Serial 3 µm thick slices were cut, deparaffinized in xylene and dehydrated with a graded series of ethanol solutions, then immersed in methanol containing 0.3% H2O2 for 20 min to inhibit endogenous peroxidase activity. The sections stained for p53 and bcl-2 were heated to 95°C by microwave irradiation for 10 min in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and 10 mM citrate buffer, respectively. The sections stained for VEGF were treated with 0.05% pepsin in 0.01 N HCl for 20 min at room temperature. After blocking with 10% normal swine serum in PBS (blocking buffer) for 60 min at room temperature, all sections were incubated overnight at room temperature with the primary antibodies diluted in blocking buffer to the following concentrations: anti-p53 antibody (Nichirei, Tokyo, Japan), 1:20 000; anti-bcl-2 antibody (DAKO, Glostrup, Denmark), 1:40; anti-GST- antibody (MBL, Nagoya, Japan), 1:24 000; anti-VEGF antibody (Santa Cruz Biochemistry, CA, USA), 1:500. The sections were washed with PBS and then incubated with biotinylated second antibody diluted to 1:200 for 1 h. After washing with PBS, the sections were incubated with ABC reagent (Vector Laboratories, CA, USA), and the color was developed in a reaction mixture containing 2% 3-3'-diaminobenzidine and 0.3% hydrogen peroxide in Tris buffer. The sections were then counterstained with hematoxylin or methyl green. The two investigators, F.N. and N.B., who were blinded to clinical outcome, assessed immunohistochemical staining independently. The intensity of staining of p53 and GST- was graded as (++) when strong, as (+) when faint and as (–) when no staining was visible. For bcl-2, the intensity of staining was graded as (++) when stronger than that in the case of lymphocytes, as (+) when equal and as (–) when weaker than that in the case of lymphocytes. The staining of VEGF was graded as (+) when the intensity of staining in the case of the cancer cells was stronger than that in the case of stromal cells, as (±) when equal and as (–) when weaker. For all markers, cases were defined as positive when >20% of all cancer cells in each section showed (++) or (+).
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Chi-squared test was applied for comparisons between the expression of biological markers and the chemoresponse. Mantel test was applied for comparisons between the chemoresponse and the number of favorable phenotypes. Survival curve was constructed using Kaplan–Meier method and compared using log-rank test. Prognostic importance of the number of favorable phenotypes was analysed using the Cox regression model, which included tumor extension, histological and macroscopic tumor type, performance status, and age as covariates. These covariates were selected because they were recognized as important variables to predict survival in the previous study (12). Statistic analysis was performed by JMP ver. 4.0.5J software (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA).
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RESULTS |
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TOPAbstractINTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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PATIENT BACKGROUNDS AND CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC EFFECTS
Clinicopathological features are listed in Table 1. The overall response rate was 55% (30/55), and the median survival time (MST) was 321 days. While the response rate did not differ between the patients with intestinal-type and diffuse-type (47%, 56%, P = 0.843), the former survived much longer than the latter (MST: 446, 259 days, P = 0.013).
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BIOLOGICAL MARKER EXPRESSION
Positive staining of p53 was observed in the nuclei of the cancer cells, whereas that of bcl-2 was observed in the cytoplasm. Staining of VEGF was observed in both cancer and stromal cells. The positive rates of p53, bcl-2, VEGF were 44% (24/55), 18% (10/55) and 64% (35/55), respectively. The clinicopathological features did not differ between the expression positive patients and the negative patients for p53, bcl-2 and VEGF, respectively. However, since GST-
-positive patients had a significantly better performance status than GST--negative patients, we excluded GST- from the further investigation.
BIOLOGICAL MARKER EXPRESSION AND RESPONSE
Higher response rates were observed in patients with p53 negative, bcl-2 negative and VEGF positive, respectively (Table 2). These relationships were in agreement with the previous findings (12). We, therefore, designated p53-negative, bcl-2-negative and VEGF-positive as favorable phenotypes for chemoresponse.
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BIOLOGICAL MARKER EXPRESSION AND SURVIVAL
As a single factor, the patients with favorable phenotypes survived slightly longer than the patients without such favorable phenotypes, but they were not significant (p53, P = 0.504; bcl-2, P = 0.402; VEGF, P = 0.479).
COMBINATION OF BIOLOGICAL MARKERS
The total number of these favorable phenotypes demonstrated a significant association with the response rate (P = 0.043, Table 3). Thirty-nine patients with 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes survived longer than the remaining 16 patients with statistical significance (MST: 444, 259 days, P = 0.021, Fig. 1). Table 4 shows relationships between the number of favorable phenotypes and clinicopathological features which were recognized as important prognostic factors in the previous study. Twenty-five (64%) of the 39 patients with 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes had intestinal-type adenocarcinoma histologically, whereas 5 (31%) of the 16 patients with 1 or 0 had intestinal-type (P = 0.053). There was no difference in other clinicopathological features between the two groups.
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MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS
The covariates in the Cox model were set to the same as those in our previous study to improve the comparability between the previous and present results (Table 5). In the Cox model, the number of the favorable phenotypes showed a tendency to correlate with survival; the prognosis in patients having only <2 favorable phenotypes was poorer compared with that in patients having 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes (hazard ratio: 1.43, P = 0.070). Among the covariates in the model, histological type and performance status were significantly correlated with survival. Tumor extension, macroscopic type and age were not significant in the present study.
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DISCUSSION |
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TOPAbstractINTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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Our results support the hypothesis that immunohistochemical examination of biological markers may be useful in predicting the clinical outcome for unresectable gastric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The number of favorable phenotypes (p53-negative, bcl-2-negative and VEGF-positive) indicates chemotherapeutic effects. We are aware of no published reports that describe relation between biological markers and therapeutic effects in gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan and cisplatin. Our results also confirm the results of the previous report that suggested the utility of combination of biological markers (12).
Up to the present, a few biological mechanisms have been implicated in determining the sensitivity to antineoplastic agents. Yeh et al. (23) reported that overexpression of p53 was not associated with resistance of gastric cancer to 5-FU-based systemic chemotherapy, whereas Nakata et al. (24) reported that p53 protein overexpression could serve as a predictor of the response to chemotherapy in gastric cancer. Thus, the correlation between some biological markers and chemoresponse is still controversial in cases of gastric cancer.
In the present study, patients who are either p53-negative, bcl-2-negative or VEGF-positive showed only a slightly higher response rate than the others. A single biological marker seems to have a small impact in predicting chemosensitivity, as shown in our previous study. Nakata et al. (25) investigated the relationship between bcl-2 and bax proteins and effect of chemotherapy in gastric cancer patients, and reported that among the bax-positive cases patients with bcl-2-positive tumors were significantly more resistant to 5-FU and had a worse prognosis than bcl-2-negative cases. Some other reports have also described the utility of combination of a couple of biological markers (26,27).
In the present study, the number of favorable phenotypes showed a clear correlation with response rates. Moreover, patients with 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes survived significantly longer than those with 1 or 0. From these results, the number of favorable phenotypes may be a good predictor of therapeutic effects in gastric cancer patients treated with irinotecan and cisplatin. Patients with intestinal-type adenocarcinoma survived longer than those with the diffuse-type, though the reasons for this difference are not clear. Yonemura et al. (28) reported a close relationship between VEGF-C expression, lymphatic spread and prognosis after surgery in gastric cancer patients. During the last few years, it was revealed that VEGF-A plays a role of prime importance in angiogenesis (29,30). The majority of subtypes of VEGF may explain the difference in chemoresponse.
The median survival time of the phase II study of irinotecan and cisplatin was 322 days, and other phase III studies for patients with metastatic gastric cancer generally showed median survival time of 7–11 months (8–10,31). And the overall response rate and survival in the present study were very similar to the results of phase II study of irinotecan and cisplatin. From these points, the overall survival time of patients with intestinal-type and 2 or 3 favorable phenotypes was remarkably long (data was not shown). Although survival elongation dose not always need high response rate, we already reported usefulness of biological markers and we have a tendency that the number of favorable phenotypes correlates to survival in the present study.
Investigating biological markers with consecutive patients eligible for enrollment criteria based on JCOG9912, as the present study is retrospective and some selection biases may not be excluded, we cannot confirm a utility of combinations of biological markers. We think a utility of biological markers should be confirmed in a large-scale study prospectively. The Japan Clinical Oncology Group had already initiated a three-arm randomized trial comparing 5-FU alone with S-1 alone and with irinotecan and cisplatin (JCOG9912). We are planning to investigate biological markers in this phase III trial.
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Acknowledgments |
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We are very grateful to Mari Nakane for performing the immunohistochemical staining. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Cancer Research (9-3, 11S-3) from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan.
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References |
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TOPAbstractINTRODUCTIONPATIENTS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONReferences |
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