MB participated in the study design and in the interpretation

of results. KD was responsible for the overall study design, participated in the flow cytometric and immunocytochemical experiments, in the interpretation of results, and helped draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Cervical carcinoma is the second most common malignancy, and continues to be a leading cause of cancer death in women. It is generally accepted that radical surgery or radiotherapy can be curative for the majority of patients with early-stage cervical carcinoma. However, the prognosis of locally advanced or bulky disease remains very poor, and the optimal management for those patients is still a matter of debate, BKM120 order FK228 clinical trial new therapeutic strategies, such as neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and concurrent chemoradiation, have been adopted to improve the prognosis for those patients [1]. Many clinical studies have revealed that NAC is highly effective for patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma, the use of NAC followed by radical surgery and/or radiation for the treatment of cervical carcinoma

has been investigated extensively in the past decade, it has been reported that NAC with cisplatinum-based chemotherapeutic regimens have high response rates (ranging from 53% to 94%) [1, 2]. However, those who have a poor response to chemotherapy usually fail to respond to radiotherapy, and have a poor prognosis. Thus, NAC may delay definitive treatment, increase cost, and Selleck I-BET151 result in poorer outcomes in those patients [3]. It is important to select appropriate patients before undergoing NAC; however, the variables used to predict NAC response are infrequently reported in locally advanced cervical carcinoma. Cisplatin is considered to be the most effective drug for the treatment of cervical carcinoma, and usually is an essential element in the NAC regimen, but the mechanisms dictating variable response to chemotherapy

among individuals are still unknown. Because platinum compounds produce adducts and breaks in the DNA double helix, individual variability of DNA repair may be Cediranib (AZD2171) relevant in modulating the efficacy of such cytotoxic agents. In resent years, some studies have shown that the molecular condition of DNA repair genes can predict the response of chemotherapy in some human cancers [4]. The presence of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among patients suggests that genetic variability may contribute to variations in responsiveness to chemotherapy [5]. X-ray repair cross-complementing gene 1 (XRCC1) is one of the most important DNA repair genes. The XRCC1 protein physically interacts with ligase III and poly(ADP-robose) polymerase, acting as a scaffold in the removal of adducts through both single-strand break repair and base excision repair (BER), and in the repair of other types of cisplatin-induced damage, including double-strand breaks, through a nonhomologous end-joining pathway [6].