Abstract
Preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is a standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer (RC) patients, but its use in non-responders can be associated with increased toxicities and resection delay. LincRNA-p21 is a long non-coding RNA involved in the p53 pathway and angiogenesis regulation. We aimed to study whether lincRNA-p21 expression levels can act as a predictive biomarker for neoadjuvant CRT response. We analyzed RNAs from pretreatment biopsies from 70 RC patients treated with preoperative CRT. Pathological response was classified according to the tumor regression grade (TRG) Dworak classification. LincRNA-p21 expression was determined by RTqPCR. The results showed that lincRNA-p21 was upregulated in stage III tumors (p = 0.007) and in tumors with the worst response regarding TRG (p = 0.027) and downstaging (p = 0.016). ROC curve analysis showed that lincRNA-p21 expression had the capacity to distinguish a complete response from others (AUC:0.696; p = 0.014). LincRNA-p21 was shown as an independent marker of preoperative CRT response (p = 0.047) and for time to relapse (TTR) (p = 0.048). In conclusion, lincRNA-p21 is a marker of advanced disease, worse response to neoadjuvant CRT, and shorter TTR in locally advanced RC patients. The study of lincRNA-p21 may be of value in the individualization of pre-operative CRT in RC.