• J Chin Med Assoc · Feb 2021

    Potential of Circulating Immune Cells as Biomarkers of Nivolumab Treatment Efficacy for Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

    • Yi-Ping Hung, Yu-Yun Shao, Jan-Mou Lee, Chiun Hsu, Chih-Hung Hsu, Muh-Hwa Yang, and Yee Chao.
    • Department of Oncology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
    • J Chin Med Assoc. 2021 Feb 1; 84 (2): 144-150.

    BackgroundRemarkable progress has been made in immunotherapy, specifically antibodies for programmed death 1 (PD-1) or programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), for treating advanced cancers. In this study, we explored whether circulating immune cells can be used as biomarkers of the efficacy of such therapy.MethodsWe enrolled patients who received nivolumab, an anti-PD-1 antibody, for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in clinical trials and who consented to the collection of their peripheral blood. Using flow cytometry, we analyzed lymphocyte subclasses and the PD-1 or PD-L1 positivity of immune cells. These results were compared between patients with disease control (complete response, partial response, or stable disease) and those with disease progression.ResultsThis study included 16 patients. The objective response rate was 19%, and the disease control rate was 75%. The hemogram results and the percentage of total αβ T cells or CD4 T cells did not significantly change after nivolumab treatment; moreover, they were not associated with treatment outcomes. The number of CD8 T cells significantly increased after 4 weeks (p = 0.016); however, this change was not associated with treatment outcomes. Patients with disease control exhibited peripheral B cells with significantly lower pretreatment PD-1 positivity than did patients with disease progression (p = 0.042). Patients with disease progression were more likely to exhibit monocytes with increased PD-L1 positivity after 28 (p = 0.020) or 42 (p = 0.008) days of treatment.ConclusionThe low pretreatment PD-1 positivity of peripheral B cells and the constant posttreatment PD-L1 positivity of monocytes were associated with disease control after nivolumab treatment for advanced HCC.Copyright © 2020, the Chinese Medical Association.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…