Background/aim: We retrospectively investigated the significance of pre-treatment interferon-gamma release (IGR) as a biomarker for predicting the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment (ICI-tx).
Patients and methods: This study included non-small-cell lung cancer patients who received ICI-tx between January 1, 2016 and April 30, 2019. IGR was measured using the positive control of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We defined the pre-treatment cut-off level of IGR as 10 IU/ml.
Results: Fifty-four patients were divided into two groups; those with an IGR ≤10 IU/ml (lower group: LG) (n=15) and those with >10 IU/ml (higher group: HG) (n=39). The time to treatment failure (TTF) in the HG was significantly longer than that in the LG. In multivariate analyses, C-reactive protein and IGR levels were significant risk factors for TTF.
Conclusion: Pre-treatment IGR level of >10 IU/ml is recommended to identify those patients who will respond favourably to ICI-tx.
Keywords: Interferon-gamma release; biomarker; immune checkpoint inhibitor; non-small-cell lung cancer; time to treatment failure.
Copyright © 2020 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.