Association of CASP7 Polymorphisms and Survival of Patients With Non-small Cell Lung Cancer With Platinum-Based Chemotherapy Treatment

BackgroundCASP7 plays a crucial role in cancer development and chemotherapy efficacy. We, therefore, explored whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the CASP7 gene can modulate outcomes of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.MethodsWe systematically genotyped 17 SNPs of CASP7 first in a discovery set of 279 patients with advanced NSCLC treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and then replicated the results in an independent set of 384 patients, in whom we evaluated associations with overall survival (OS) and progress-free survival (PFS) by Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox hazards regression analysis.ResultsIn both discovery and validation sets as well as in the pooled analysis, heterozygotes of CASP7 rs2227310 and rs4353229 as well as rs12415607 variant allele were strongly associated with a better OS of NSCLC (in the pooled sample: adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.73; 95% CI = 0.59–0.90; P = .003; HR, 0.72; 95% CI = 0.59–0.89; P = .002; and HR, 0.76; 95% CI = 0.62–0.94; P = .009; respectively). In stratified analyses of the pooled data set, treated with paclitaxel, individuals carrying variant allele of rs2227310, rs4353229, and rs12415607 had significantly improved OS (HR, 0.60; 95% CI = 0.41–0.87; P = .008; HR, 0.58; 95% CI = 0.39–0.84; P = .004; and HR, 0.61; 95% CI = 0.42–0.89; P = .010; respectively).ConclusionsThis study provides evidence that genetic variations of CASP7 may modulate OS and PFS of patients with advanced NSCLC treated with platinum-based chemotherapy.