scholarly journals Circulating Tumor Cell PD-L1 Expression as Biomarker for Therapeutic Efficacy of Immune Checkpoint Inhibition in NSCLC

Cells ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kloten ◽  
Lampignano ◽  
Krahn ◽  
Schlange

Over the last decade, the immune checkpoint blockade targeting the programmed death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) axis has improved progression-free and overall survival of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. PD-L1 tumor expression, along with tumor mutational burden, is currently being explored as a predictive biomarker for responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, lung cancer patients may have insufficient tumor tissue samples and the high bleeding risk often prevents additional biopsies and, as a consequence, immunohistological evaluation of PD-L1 expression. In addition, PD-L1 shows a dynamic expression profile and can be influenced by intratumoral heterogeneity as well as the immune cell infiltrate in the tumor and its microenvironment, influencing the response rate to PD-1/PD-L1 axis ICIs. Therefore, to identify subgroups of patients with advanced NSCLC that will most likely benefit from ICI therapies, molecular characterization of PD-L1 expression in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) might be supportive. In this review, we highlight the use of CTCs as a complementary diagnostic tool for PD-L1 expression analysis in advanced NSCLC patients. In addition, we examine technical issues of PD-L1 measurement in tissue as well as in CTCs.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 175883591876209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Lazzari ◽  
Niki Karachaliou ◽  
Alessandra Bulotta ◽  
Mariagrazia Viganó ◽  
Aurora Mirabile ◽  
...  

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have significantly improved overall survival with an acceptable safety profile in a substantial proportion of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. However, not all patients are sensitive to immune checkpoint blockade and, in some cases, programmed death 1 (PD-1) or programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors accelerate tumor progression. Several combination strategies are under evaluation, including the concomitant or sequential evaluation of chemotherapy or radiotherapy with immunotherapy. The current review provides an overview on the molecular rationale for the investigation of combinatorial approaches with chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Moreover, the results of completed clinical studies will be reported.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Wang ◽  
Zhixuan Ren ◽  
Bentong Yu ◽  
Jian Tang

Abstract Introduction Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have become a frontier in the field of clinical technology for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Currently, the predictive biomarker of ICIs mainly including the expression of PD-L1, TMB, TIICs, MMR and MSI-H. However, there are no official biomarkers to guide the treatment of ICIs and to determine the prognosis. Therefore, it is essential to explore a systematic nomogram to predict the prognosis of ICIs treatment in NSCLC Methods In this work, we obtained gene expression and clinical data of NSCLC patients from the TCGA database. Immune-related genes (IRGs) were downloaded from the ImmPort database. The detailed clinical annotation and response data of 240 advanced NSCLC patients who received ICIs treatment were obtained from the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis was used to perform survival analyses, and selected clinical variables to develop a novel nomogram. The prognostic significance of FGFR4 was validated by another cohort in cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics. Results 3% of the NSCLC patients harbored FGFR4 mutations. The mutation of FGFR4 were confirmed to be associated with PD-L1, and TMB. Patients harbored FGFR4 mutations were found to have a better prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) to ICIs treatment (FGFR4: P = 0.0209). Here, we built and verified a novel nomogram to predict the prognosis of ICIs treatment for NSCLC patients. Conclusion Our results showed that FGFR4 could serve as novel biomarkers to predict the prognosis of ICIs treatment of advanced NSCLC. Our systematic prognostic nomogram showed a great potential to predict the prognosis of ICIs for advanced NSCLC patients.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1397
Author(s):  
Guangsheng Zhu ◽  
Dian Ren ◽  
Xi Lei ◽  
Ruifeng Shi ◽  
Shuai Zhu ◽  
...  

(1) Background: The immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has shown promising efficacy in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with significant clinical benefits and durable responses, but the overall response rate to ICBs is only 20%. The lack of responsiveness to ICBs is currently a central problem in cancer immunotherapy. (2) Methods: Four public cohorts comprising 2986 patients with NSCLC were included in the study. We screened 158 patients with NSCLC with no durable clinical benefit (NDB) to ICBs in the Rizvi cohort and identified NDB-related gene mutations in these patients using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, tumor mutation burden (TMB), neoantigen load, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, and immune-related gene expression were analyzed for identifying gene mutations. A comprehensive predictive classifier model was also built to evaluate the efficacy of ICB therapy. (3) Results: Mutations in FAT1 and KEAP1 were found to correlate with NDB in patients with NSCLC to ICBs; however, the analysis suggested that only mutation in FAT1 was valuable in predicting the efficacy of ICB therapy, and that mutation in KEAP1 acted as a prognostic but not a predictive biomarker for NSCLC. Mutations in FAT1 were associated with a higher TMB and lower multiple lymphocyte infiltration, including CD8 (T-Cell Surface Glycoprotein CD8)+ T cells. We established a prognostic model according to PD-L1 expression, TMB, smoking status, treatment regimen, treatment type, and FAT1 mutation, which indicated good accuracy by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis (area under the curve (AUC) for 6-months survival: 0.763; AUC for 12-months survival: 0.871). (4) Conclusions: Mutation in FAT1 may be a predictive biomarker in patients with NSCLC who exhibit NDB to ICBs. We proposed an FAT1 mutation-based model for screening more suitable NSCLC patients to receive ICBs that may contribute to individualized immunotherapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiao Yang ◽  
Mingjing Chen ◽  
Jiaoyang Gu ◽  
Kai Niu ◽  
Xianlan Zhao ◽  
...  

BackgroundImmune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have become a high-profile regimen for malignancy recently. However, only a small subpopulation obtains long-term clinical benefit. How to select optimal patients by reasonable biomarkers remains a hot topic.MethodsPaired tissue samples and blood samples from 51 patients with advanced malignancies were collected for correlation analysis. Dynamic changes in blood PD-L1 (bPD-L1) expression, including PD-L1 mRNA, exosomal PD-L1 (exoPD-L1) protein and soluble PD-L1 (sPD-L1), were detected after 2 months of ICIs treatment in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The best cutoff values for progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of all three biomarkers were calculated with R software.ResultsIn 51 cases of various malignancies, those with positive tissue PD-L1 (tPD-L1) had significantly higher PD-L1 mRNA than those with negative tPD-L1. In 40 advanced NSCLC patients, those with a fold change of PD-L1 mRNA ≥ 2.04 had better PFS, OS and best objective response (bOR) rate. In addition, a fold change of exoPD-L1 ≥ 1.86 was also found to be associated with better efficacy and OS in a cohort of 21 advanced NSCLC cases. The dynamic change of sPD-L1 was not associated with efficacy and OS. Furthermore, the combination of PD-L1 mRNA and exoPD-L1 could screen better patients for potential benefit from ICIs treatment.ConclusionThere was a positive correlation between bPD-L1 and tPD-L1 expression. Increased expression of PD-L1 mRNA, exoPD-L1, or both in early stage of ICIs treatment could serve as positive biomarkers of efficacy and OS in advanced NSCLC patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9561-9561
Author(s):  
Philippe Rochigneux ◽  
Anne Sophie Chretien ◽  
Delphine Rossille ◽  
Brice Chanez ◽  
Emilien Billon ◽  
...  

9561 Background: Medical treatment of lung cancer has irreversibly changed since the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). However, immune biomarkers of efficacy are still lacking. Preliminary data in leukemia and pancreatic cancer showed that soluble immune checkpoints are associated with a reduced overall survival (OS). This led us to explore the prognostic and predictive value of soluble immune checkpoints in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with chemotherapy or ICI. Methods: We analyzed 90 advanced NSCLC patients. The pilot cohort (Rennes University Hospital, France), included 48 patients treated with platinum doublets (n = 33) or ICI (n = 15) (LOC/11-16 protocol). The confirmation cohort (Paoli-Calmettes Institute) included 42 patients treated with ICI (nivolumab or pembrolizumab) in a longitudinal prospective setting (Immunosup trial, NCT03595813). In both cohorts, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were performed in baseline plasma samples for soluble forms of PD-1, PD-L1, global BTN3, BTLA, BTN3-A1 and BTN2A1. Soluble ICI levels were linked to clinical data using Kaplan-Meier, log-rank and Cox proportional-hazards models. Cut-points were determined using maxstat package for survival, R software R 3.6.2. Results: Five soluble immune checkpoints correlated and clustered together in unsupervised analysis (PD-1, PD-L1, global BTN3, BTLA, BTN3-A1), but were not associated with ICI efficacy. In patients treated with ICI, in the pilot and confirmation cohort, a high baseline plasmatic concentration of soluble BTN2A1 was significantly associated with an improved OS (confirmation cohort with a BTN2A1 cut-point of 3.55 ng/ml: HR = 0.30, 95%CI = 0.12-0.74, p = 0.0057, median OS in BTN2A1low = 7.6 months and median OS in BTN2A1hi = 19.5 months). On the contrary, in patients treated with chemotherapy, soluble BTN2A1 concentration was not associated with overall survival. Conclusions: In advanced NSCLC patients, a high baseline plasmatic concentration of soluble BTN2A1 was correlated with improved outcomes for ICI, but not for chemotherapy, suggesting that baseline soluble BTN2A1 level is a potential predictive biomarker of ICI efficacy. Additional studies are ongoing to confirm this finding.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xilin Hu ◽  
Hanlin Xu ◽  
Qianwen Xue ◽  
Ruran Wen ◽  
Wenjie Jiao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have witnessed the achievements of convincing clinical benefits that feature the significantly prolonged overall survival (OS) of patients suffering from advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to reports recently. Sensitivity to immunotherapy is related to several biomarkers, such as PD-L1 expression, TMB level, MSI-H and MMR. However, a further investigation into the novel biomarkers of the prognosis on ICIs treatment is required. In addition, there is an urgent demand for the establishment of a systematic hazard model to assess the efficacy of ICIs therapy for advanced NSCLC patients. Methods In this study, the gene mutation and clinical data of NSCLC patients was obtained from the TCGA database, followed by the analysis of the detailed clinical information and mutational data relating to two advanced NSCLC cohorts receiving the ICIs treatment from the cBioPortal of Cancer Genomics. The Kaplan–Meier plot method was used to perform survival analyses, while selected variables were adopted to develop a systematic nomogram. The prognostic significance of ERBB4 in pan-cancer was analyzed by another cohort from the cBioPortal of Cancer Genomics. Results The mutation frequencies of TP53 and ERBB4 were 54% and 8% in NSCLC, respectively. The mutual exclusive analysis in cBioPortal has indicated that ERBB4 does show co-occurencing mutations with TP53. Patients with ERBB4 mutations were confirmed to have better prognosis for ICIs treatment, compared to those seeing ERBB4 wild type (PFS: exact p = 0.017; OS: exact p < 0.01) and only TP53 mutations (OS: p = 0.021). The mutation status of ERBB4 and TP53 was tightly linked to DCB of ICIs treatment, PD-L1 expression, TMB value, and TIICs. Finally, a novel nomogram was built to evaluate the efficacy of ICIs therapy. Conclusion ERBB4 mutations could serve as a predictive biomarker for the prognosis of ICIs treatment. The systematic nomogram was proven to have the great potential for evaluating the efficacy of ICIs therapy for advanced NSCLC patients.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xilin Hu ◽  
Ruran Wen ◽  
Hanlin Xu ◽  
Wenjie Jiao ◽  
Kaihua Tian

Abstract Introduction: Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has been reported to achieved convincing clinical benefits and significantly prolonged the overall survival (OS) of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Sensitivity to immunotherapy was related to several biomarkers, such as PD-L1 expression, TMB level, MSI-H and MMR. However, novel biomarkers for the prognosis to ICIs treatment need to be further investigated, and it is an urgent demand to establish a systematic hazard model to assess the efficacy of ICIs therapy for advanced NSCLC patients.Methods: In this study, gene mutation and clinical data of NSCLC patients was obtained from the TCGA database. Then, we analyzed the detailed clinical information and mutational data of two advanced NSCLC cohorts received ICIs treatment from the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics. The Kaplan-Meier plot method was used to perform survival analyses, selected variables were used to develop a systematic nomogram. The prognostic significance of ERBB4 in pan-cancer was analyzed by another cohort from cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics.Results: Mutation frequencies of TP53 and ERBB4 was 54% and 8% in NSCLC, respectively. Mutual exclusive analysis in cBioPortal indicated that ERBB4 does show co-occurencing mutations with TP53. Patients harbored ERBB4 mutations were confirmed to have a better prognosis for ICIs treatment, compared to ERBB4 wild type (PFS: p=0.0360; OS: p=0.0378) and only TP53 mutations (OS: p=0.021). The mutation status of ERBB4 and TP53 are tightly linked to DCB for ICIs treatment, PD-L1 expression, TMB value and TIICs. Finally, a novel nomogram was built to evaluate the efficacy of ICIs therapy.Conclusion: ERBB4 mutations could serve as a predicting biomarker for prognosis of ICIs treatment. The systematic nomogram was proven to have a great potential to evaluate the efficacy of ICIs therapy for advanced NSCLC patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chongxiang Xue ◽  
Shuyue Zheng ◽  
Huijing Dong ◽  
Xingyu Lu ◽  
Xu Zhang ◽  
...  

BackgroundMounting randomized clinical trials have proved that immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) achieved better overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) than chemotherapy drugs for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. However, some literatures have indicated that different sexes might not have equal immune response. Also, no agreement reached on the issue whether therapeutic benefit of ICIs is related to sex.ObjectivesTo explore the association between efficacy of ICIs for NSCLC patients and their sexes and summarize overall treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) in an exploratory manner.MethodsWe performed this systematic review and meta-analysis of all potentially relevant studies retrieved from PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library until June 2021, for eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing immunotherapy with chemotherapy in advanced NSCLC patients. Literature screening, summary data extraction was performed independently and in duplicate. The pooled hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of OS, PFS and TRAEs were calculated, applying STATA software and random-effects models. This study was registered in international prospective register of systematic reviews (PROSPERO), number CRD42020210797.ResultsTwenty-one trials involving 12,675 NSCLC patients were included. For patients with advanced NSCLC, ICIs significantly prolonged the OS (males: HR 0.73, 95%CI 0.67-0.79; females: HR 0.73, 95%CI 0.61-0.85) and PFS (males: HR 0.62, 95%CI 0.55-0.70; females: HR 0.68, 95%CI 0.55-0.81) versus chemotherapy. Overall, there was no statistical difference between their sexes (OS: P = 0.97; PFS: P = 0.43), respectively. Owing to insufficient TRAEs data of different sexes, we only found immunotherapy for NSCLC patients had more all-grades (RR 0.88; 95%CI 0.82-0.95) and 3-5 grades (RR 0.60; 95%CI 0.47-0.75) AEs compared with chemotherapy.ConclusionOur findings indicated that the interaction between immunotherapy efficacy and different sexes was equally evident. Overall, patients with NSCLC could obtain more benefits from ICIs than chemotherapy regimen regardless of their sexes.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/), identifier CRD42020210797.


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