The SNPs in ERCC1 and AFP genes may affect the prognosis of HCC, offering reliable information for early prediction of tumor progression and diagnosis of HCC.
Furthermore, multivariate logistic regression and MDR analysis consistently revealed a gene-gene interaction among ERCC1rs2298881 and XPC rs1870134 SNPs associated with HCC risk (Pinteraction = 0.023).
Our findings strongly suggest that overexpression of two key genes involved in the early steps of the NER process, ERCC1 and XPC, is associated with liver fibrogenesis and cancer and could be related to the well recognized resistance of HCC to chemotherapeutics.