Functional Germline DNA Repair Mutations as Predictors of Acute Radiodermatitis in Breast Cancer.

Background/

Objectives

Acute radiotherapy-induced skin toxicity is a common complication in breast cancer treatment, with marked interindividual variability not fully explained by clinical factors. This study investigated the contribution of germline mutations in DNA repair and tumor suppressor genes to acute radiodermatitis in a homogeneous cohort treated with hypofractionated intensity-modulated radiotherapy with inverse planning, with adjustment for potential lifestyle confounders.

Methods

Mutations were grouped into four functional categories: homologous recombination repair (HRR), Fanconi anemia (FA), DNA damage response (DDR), and tumor suppressor (TS) genes. Ordinal logistic regression models adjusted for clinical covariates evaluated pooled and functional category-specific mutation effects.

Results

Overall, any mutation significantly increased the risk of higher-grade acute radiodermatitis (OR = 2.24, p = 0.003), an effect driven primarily by HRR and FA mutations, as exclusion of these mutations rendered the association non-significant (OR = 1.785, p = 0.064). Functional category-based analyses showed that HRR (OR = 2.60, p = 0.002) and FA (OR = 2.62, p = 0.002) mutations were the strongest predictors, reflecting overlapping roles in double-strand break and interstrand crosslink repair. DDR and TS mutations showed no significant effect.

Conclusions

These results highlight the key role of high-fidelity DNA repair in normal tissue radiosensitivity and demonstrate that functional genetic stratification has diagnostic value as a pre-treatment predictive biomarker framework, enabling identification of patients at increased risk of acute skin toxicity and supporting personalized radiotherapy planning.