Background: Prognostic biomarker, which can inform the treatment outcome of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) after complete resection of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), is urgently needed for the personalized treatment of these patients.
Patients and methods: The prognostic value of gene expression of the estrogen receptor (ER) on the effect of ACT in completely resected NSCLC was investigated in the present study. Two independent datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) with a total of 309 patients were included in this study. The prognostic value of ER gene expression on ACT's efficacy was evaluated by survival analysis and Cox hazards models.
Results: We found a consistent and significant prognostic value of ERβ (ESR2) expression for ACT's efficacy in completely resected NSCLC in both of the two independent cohorts. After multivariate adjustment, a significant survival benefit of ACT was observed in patients with low expression of ESR2, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.19 (95%CI 0.05-0.82, p = 0.026) in the discovery cohort and an HR of 0.27 (95%CI 0.10-0.76, p = 0.012) in the validation group. No significant benefit of ACT in the subgroup of patients with high expression of ESR2 was observed, with an HR of 0.80 (95%CI 0.31-2.09, p = 0.644) in the discovery cohort and an HR of 1.05 (95%CI 0.48-2.29, p = 0.896) in the validation group.
Conclusion: A significant survival benefit from ACT was observed in patients with low ESR2 expression. No significant survival benefit was observed in patients with high ESR2 expression. Detection of ESR2 expression in NSCLC may help personalize its treatment after complete resection.