Identification of genetic subtypes in follicular lymphoma.

Follicular lymphoma (FL) exhibits considerable variability in biological features and clinical trajectories across patients. To dissect the diversity of FL, we utilized a Bernoulli mixture model to identify genetic subtypes in 713 pre-treatment tumor tissue samples. Our analysis revealed the existence of five subtypes with unique genetic profiles that correlated with clinicopathological characteristics. The clusters were enriched in specific mutations as follows: CS (CREBBP and STAT6), TT (TNFAIP3 and TP53), GM (GNA13 and MEF2B), Q (quiescent, for low mutation burden), and AR (mutations of mTOR pathway-related genes). The subtype Q was enriched for patients with stage I disease and associated with a lower proliferative history than the other subtypes. The AR subtype was unique in its enrichment for IgM-expressing FL cases and was associated with advanced-stage and more than 4 nodal sites. The existence of subtypes was validated in an independent cohort of 418 samples from the GALLIUM trial. Notably, patients assigned to the TT subtype consistently experienced inferior progression-free survival when treated with immunochemotherapy. Our findings offer insight into core pathways distinctly linked with each FL cluster and are expected to be informative in the era of targeted therapies.

Single gene mutations and prognosis in limited-stage follicular lymphoma treated with radiation therapy.

Radiotherapy is routinely used for management of limited-stage follicular lymphoma (FL), yet half of patients ultimately relapse. We hypothesized that the presence of specific gene mutations may predict outcomes. We performed targeted sequencing of a 69-gene panel in 117 limited-stage FL patients treated with radiotherapy and identified recurrently mutated genes. CREBBP was most frequently mutated, and mutated CREBBP was associated with inferior progression-free survival, though not after false discovery rate adjustment. This association failed to validate in an independent cohort. We conclude that recurrent gene mutations do not predict outcomes in this setting. Alternative biomarkers may offer better prognostic insight.

Canadian cancer trials group LY.17: A randomized phase II study evaluating novel salvage therapy pre-autologous stem cell transplant in relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma-outcome of rituximab-dose-intensive cyclophosphamide, etoposide, cisplatin (R-DICEP) versus R-GDP.

The Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) LY.17 is an ongoing multi-arm randomized phase II trial evaluating novel salvage therapies compared with R-GDP (rituximab, gemcitabine, dexamethasone and cisplatin) in autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT)-eligible patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (RR-DLBCL). This component of the LY.17 trial evaluated a dose-intensive chemotherapy approach using a single cycle of inpatient R-DICEP (rituximab, dose-intensive cyclophosphamide, etoposide and cisplatin) to achieve both lymphoma response and stem cell mobilization, shortening time to ASCT. This report is the result of the protocol-specified second interim analysis of the 67 patients who were randomized to either 1 cycle of R-DICEP or to 3 cycles of R-GDP. The overall response rate (ORR) was 65.6% for R-DICEP and 48.6% for R-GDP. The ASCT rate was 71.9% versus 54.3%, and 1-year progression-free survival rate was 42% versus 32%, respectively, for R-DICEP versus R-GDP. Although the improvement in ORR for R-DICEP versus R-GDP exceeded the pre-specified 10% threshold to proceed to full accrual of 64 patients/arm, higher rates of grade 3-5 toxicities, and the need for hospitalization led to the decision to stop this arm of the study. CCTG LY.17 will continue to evaluate different salvage regimens that incorporate novel agents.

Surveillance evaluations in patients with stage I, II, III, or resectable IV melanoma who were treated with curative intent: A systematic review.

PURPOSE: Appropriate surveillance of patients with melanoma treated with curative intent is vital to improve patient outcomes. A systematic review was conducted to capture locoregional recurrence and metastatic disease, and to evaluate the effectiveness of various surveillance strategies. METHODS: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and National Cancer Institute Clinical Trials Database were searched. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and comparative studies reporting at least one patient-related outcome were included. Exclusion criteria included: published in non-English or recruited >20 % or an uncertain percentage of non-target patients without conducting a subgroup analysis for the target patients. This review was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42021246482). RESULTS: Among 17,978 publications from the literature search, one RCT and five non-randomized comparative studies were included and comprised 4016 patients. The aggregate evidence certainty was low for the RCT and very low for the comparative studies, as assessed by the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) approach. For patients with stage IA-IIC melanoma, a reduced follow-up schedule with clinical follow-up strategies alone may be safe and cost-effective. For stage IIC-IIIC patients, at least two serial PET/CT or whole-body CT and brain MRI imaging within a median follow-up of 31.2 months may detect 50 % of recurrences that lead to additional management, such as surgery. PET/CT may have a higher positive predictive value and lower false positive rate compared with CT alone in detecting recurrence in stage I-III patients. CONCLUSION: Surveillance protocols should be based on individual risk of recurrence and established best practices when formulating follow-up strategies, as suggested by the studies reviewed. Future high-quality studies are needed to clarify the frequency of imaging follow-up strategies, especially in patients with high-risk stage II melanoma.

Association of circadian timing of initial infusions of immune checkpoint inhibitors with survival in advanced melanoma.

Aims: Chronomodulation of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is not well understood. The authors evaluated the circadian timing of initial ICI infusions. Patients & methods: A retrospective cohort study of patients with advanced melanoma (n = 121) was conducted. Results: Exclusive afternoon timing of the first four infusions was associated with worse overall survival (5.5 vs 24.9 months; p < 0.001) and progression-free survival (3.3 vs 7.6 months; p = 0.009) on Kaplan-Meier curves. In multivariable Cox analysis, the rate of overall survival was lower in patients who received all first four ICI infusions in the afternoon versus patients who received ≥1 of the first four infusions in the morning (hazard ratio: 2.4; p = 0.004). Conclusion: Deliberate morning scheduling for the first several ICI treatments may improve patient-centered outcomes.

Survivals following discontinuation of PD-1 inhibitor treatment in advanced melanoma patients.

The aim of this study was to evaluate overall survival post-treatment discontinuation survival (OS PTD ) in advanced melanoma patients started on immunotherapy. This retrospective study included all unresectable advanced or metastatic melanoma patients who had permanent treatment discontinuation after receiving at least one cycle of palliative-intent programmed death-1 ± cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein-4 inhibitor treatment from 2014 to 2019. Indications of permanent treatment discontinuation included treatment completion, toxicity or progression. OS PTD was defined as a time of permanent treatment discontinuation to the time of death. Our study ( N = 96) had 27, 12 and 57 patients who discontinued PD-1 inhibitor treatment due to treatment completion, toxicity and progression, respectively. Median treatment durations received for the treatment completion, toxicity and progression groups were 24, 6 and 3 months, respectively. As expected those patients who had disease progression on immunotherapy had very poor survival compared to those that completed treatment or stopped due to toxicity. A multivariable Cox model excluding the patients who progressed indicated no significant OS PTD differences between the toxicity and treatment completion group (HR, 0.894; 95% CI, 0.232-3.449; P = 0.871) who received single or dual immunotherapy. Our real-world study highlighted similar, durable survival at PD-1 inhibitor discontinuation due to either toxicity or treatment completion, despite longer treatment duration received in the completion group than toxicity group. Patients with progression on PD-1 inhibitor treatment have very poor survival. Our findings must be interpreted with caution due to its retrospective nature and small sample size.

Expression of TCF3 target genes defines a subclass of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma characterized by up-regulation of MYC target genes and poor clinical outcome following R-CHOP therapy.

TCF3 is a lymphopoietic transcription factor that acquires somatic driver mutations in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Hypothesizing that expression patterns of TCF3-regulated genes can inform clinical management, we found that unsupervised clustering analysis with 15 TCF3-regulated genes and eight additional ones resolved local DLBCL cases into two main clusters, denoted Groups A and B, of which Group A manifested inferior overall survival (OS, p = 0.0005). We trained a machine learning model to classify samples into the Groups based on expression of the 23 transcripts in an independent validation cohort of 569 R-CHOP-treated DLBCL cases. Group A overlapped with the ABC cell-of-origin subgroup but its prognostic power was superior. GSEA analysis demonstrated asymmetric expression of 30 gene sets between the Groups, pointing to biological differences. We present, validate and make available a novel method to assign DLBCL cases into biologically-distinct groups with divergent OS following R-CHOP therapy.

Long-Term Toxicities of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor (ICI) in Melanoma Patients.

ICI therapy has greatly improved patient outcomes in melanoma, but at the cost of immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Data on the chronicity of irAEs, especially in real-world settings, are currently limited. We performed a retrospective chart review of 161 adult patients with melanoma treated with at least one cycle of ICI regimen in the adjuvant or metastatic setting: 129 patients received PD-1 inhibitor monotherapy and 32 received dual immunotherapy. Patients were grouped by duration of irAE: permanent (no complete resolution), long-term (resolution over a period ≥ 6 months), transient (resolution over a period < 6 months), or no irAEs. A total of 283 irAEs were reported in the whole patient population. Sixty-six (41.0%) patients developed permanent irAEs, fifteen (9.3%) experienced long-term irAEs as their longest-lasting toxicity, thirty-four (21.1%) developed transient irAEs only, and forty-six (28.6%) experienced no irAEs. Permanent irAEs occurred in 21 (65.6%) patients treated with dual immunotherapy and in 45 (34.9%) patients treated with monotherapy. The majority of permanent irAEs were endocrine-related (36.0%) or skin-related (32.4%). Grade 3-4 permanent irAEs occurred in 20 (12.4%) patients and included toxicities such as adrenal insufficiency, myocarditis, and myelitis. Fifty-three (32.9%) patients were still requiring treatment for long-term or permanent irAEs 6 months or more following the completion of ICI therapy, including twenty-four patients on thyroid hormone replacement and twenty-two on oral steroids. ICI treatment was temporarily interrupted for 64 (22.6%) irAEs and permanently discontinued due to irAEs in 38 patients (13.6% of irAEs, 23.6% of patients); additionally, 4 (2.5%) patients died of irAEs. Our findings show that ICI treatment in melanoma is associated with a wide range of toxicities that can be permanent and may have long-lasting impacts on patients, which should therefore be discussed when obtaining consent for treatment.

A population-based validation study of the 8th edition UICC/AJCC TNM staging system for cutaneous melanoma.

BACKGROUND: The 8th edition UICC/AJCC TNM8 (Tumour, Nodes, Metastasis) melanoma staging system introduced several modifications from the 7th edition (TNM7), resulting in changes in survival and subgroup composition. We set out to address the limited validation of TNM8 (stages I-IV) in large population-based datasets. METHODS: This retrospective cohort-study included 6,414 patients from the population-based Ontario Cancer Registry diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2012. Kaplan-Meier curves estimated the melanoma-specific survival (MSS) and overall survival (OS). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios for MSS and OS across stage groups. The Schemper-Henderson measure was used to assess the variance explained in the Cox regression. RESULTS: In our sample, 21.3% of patients were reclassified with TNM8 from TNM7; reclassifications in stage II were uncommon, and 44.1% of patients in stage III were reclassified to a higher subgroup. Minimal changes in MSS curves were observed between editions, but the stage IIB curve decreased and the stage IIIC curve increased. For TNM8, Stage I (n = 4,556), II (n = 1,206), III (n = 598), and IV (n = 54) had an estimated 5-year MSS of 98.4%, 82.5%, 66.4%, and 14.4%, respectively. Within stage III, IIIA 5-year MSS was 91.7% while stage IIID was 23.5%. HRs indicated that TNM8 more evenly separates subgroups once adjusted for patient- and disease-characteristics. The variance in MSS explained by TNM7 and TNM8 is 18.9% and 19.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION: TNM8 performed well in our sample, with more even separation of stage subgroups and a modest improvement in predictive ability compared to TNM7.

No association between BMI and immunotoxicity or clinical outcomes for immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Background: The impact of BMI on immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicity and efficacy has not been clearly characterized. Methods: The authors conducted a retrospective single-center study of patients with advanced unresectable/metastatic cancer initiated on immune checkpoint inhibitors. Results: Of the 409 patients included in the study, 115 (28%) had a BMI ≥30. There was no difference in the development of immune-related adverse events, treatment response or overall survival with respect to BMI <30 versus ≥30 for the whole study population or the melanoma subgroup. Conclusion: Patients with BMI in the obese range (≥30) were not at increased risk of immunotoxicity. Furthermore, BMI was not correlated with treatment response or overall survival in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Several previous studies have suggested that obesity may be correlated with improved efficacy of immunotherapy and raised the concern that obesity may be associated with increased immunotoxicity; however, other studies have not replicated these findings. The authors evaluated the records from one center of 409 patients with advanced cancer on immune checkpoint inhibitors. There was no difference with respect to adverse events, treatment response or survival between obese and nonobese patients.

Complete response and survival outcomes in patients with advanced cancer on immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Aim: To evaluate overall survival in advanced cancer patients who achieved complete response (CR) with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. Methods: This retrospective study included patients with advanced unresectable or metastatic cancer who received at least one cycle of palliative-intent ICI. Best overall response was used to define response groups. Results: 21 (7%) of 322 patients achieved CR. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that CR was independently associated with better overall survival compared with disease progression (hazard ratio: 0.012; 95% CI: 0.002-0.090) and stable disease (hazard ratio: 0.063; 95% CI: 0.009-0.464) as well as a nonsignificant trend toward better overall survival compared with partial response (hazard ratio: 0.169; 95% CI: 0.023-1.252) regardless of cancer type, ICI regimen or ICI line. Conclusion: Patients who achieved CR had longer survival compared with patients who did not achieve CR.

Improved overall survival in dual compared to single immune checkpoint inhibitors in BRAF V600-negative advanced melanoma.

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of dual versus single immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in BRAF wild-type advanced melanoma patients. Materials & methods: A retrospective study of all advanced BRAF wild-type melanoma patients on palliative-intent ICI between 2015 and 2020 (n = 67). Results: Dual ICI had better overall survival (OS) when compared with single ICI in BRAF wild-type patients (hazard ratio: 0.204; 95% CI: 0.064-0.649; p = 0.007), but lost its statistical significance (median OSl not reached vs 20.9 months; p = 0.213; adjusted hazard ratio: 0.475; 95% CI: 0.164-1.380; p = 0.171) when only including patients treated after 2018 when dual ICI was funded in our province. Dual ICI were significantly associated with more frequent (p = 0.005) and severe (p = 0.026) immune-related adverse events, and required more immune-related adverse events-indicated systemic corticosteroid use (p < 0.001) compared with single ICI. Conclusion: While limited by small sample size and retrospective nature, dual ICI may have non statistically significant trend toward better OS efficacy when compared with single ICI in BRAF V600 wild-type advanced melanoma patients.

Real-World Evidence of Systemic Therapy Sequencing on Overall Survival for Patients with Metastatic BRAF-Mutated Cutaneous Melanoma.

Aim: To evaluate optimal systemic therapy sequencing (first-line targeted therapy (1L-TT) vs. first-line immunotherapy (1L-IO)) in patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma. Methods: Nation-wide prospective data of patients with newly diagnosed BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma were retrieved from the Canadian Melanoma Research Network. Results: Our study included 79 and 107 patients in the 1L-IO and 1L-TT groups, respectively. There were more patients with ECOG 0−1 (91% vs. 72%, p = 0.023) in the 1L-IO group compared to the 1L-TT group. Multivariable Cox analysis suggested no OS differences between the two groups (HR 0.838, 95%CI 0.502−1.400, p = 0.500). However, patients who received 1L-TT then 2L-IO had the longest OS compared to 1L-IO without 2L therapy, 1L-IO then 2L-TT, and 1L-TT without 2L therapy (38.3 vs. 32.2 vs. 16.9 vs. 6.3 months, p < 0.001). For patients who received 2L therapy, those who received 2L-IO had a trend towards OS improvement compared with the 2L-TT group (21.7 vs. 8.9 months, p = 0.053). Conclusions: Our nation-wide prospective study failed to establish any optimal systemic therapy sequencing in advanced BRAF-mutant melanoma patients. Nevertheless, we provided evidence that immunotherapy has durable efficacy in advanced BRAF-mutant melanoma patients, regardless of treatment line, and that Canadian medical oncologists were selecting the appropriate treatment sequences in a real-world setting, based on patients' clinical and tumour characteristics.

Venous thromboembolism events in patients with advanced cancer on immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Aim: To evaluate the correlation between venous thromboembolism events (VTEs) and immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-based regimens. Methods: This is a retrospective study of 403 patients with advanced cancer on ICI-based regimens. Results: We report 8% VTE incidence post-ICI initiation over a median of 11.1 months of follow-up. Compared with single-agent ICI, dual-ICI was significantly correlated with higher incidence of VTE (odds ratio [OR]: 4.196, 95% CI: 1.527-11.529, p = 0.005), but chemotherapy-immuno-oncology combination was not (OR: 1.374, 95% CI: 0.285-6.632, p = 0.693). Subsequent systemic therapy post-ICI was also independently associated with higher VTE incidence (OR: 2.599, 95% CI: 1.169-5.777, p = 0.019). Conclusion: Our findings suggest potential underreporting of VTE incidence in ICI clinical trials. As dual-ICI is becoming more prevalent in cancer management, clinicians should maintain vigilance regarding VTE in patients with advanced cancer on ICI-based regimens.

Safety and Clinical Outcomes of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Patients With Cancer and Preexisting Autoimmune Diseases.

Immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment outcomes in numerous cancers. However, clinical trials have largely excluded patients with autoimmune diseases (ADs) due to the risk of AD flares or predilection for developing organ-specific inflammation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with cancer and preexisting ADs. A retrospective, single-center study of patients with cancer initiated on immune checkpoint inhibitors between 2012 and 2019 was conducted. The primary outcome was the development of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) with respect to the presence of AD at baseline. Associations were assessed using Kaplan-Meier curves, bivariate and multivariable analyses. Of the 417 patients included in this study, 63 patients (15%) had preexisting ADs. A total of 218 patients (53%) developed at least 1 irAE. There was no association between the presence of baseline AD on the development, grade, or number of irAEs; time to irAE or irAE recovery; systemic corticosteroid or additional immunosuppressant treatment for irAEs; permanent treatment discontinuation; or overall response rate. Two smaller cohorts were studied, melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer, and there was no effect of baseline AD on overall survival on either cohort. However, a greater proportion of patients with baseline ADs had full recovery from their irAE (P=0.037). Furthermore, age below 65, baseline steroid use, and single-agent immunotherapy regimens were protective in terms of the development of irAEs. Our study suggests that immune checkpoint inhibitors have similar safety and efficacy profiles in patients with preexisting ADs.

Impact of the development of immune related adverse events in metastatic melanoma treated with PD -1 inhibitors.

Some clinical trials have described improved outcomes in patients who develop immune-related adverse events (irAEs) while receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors for advanced melanoma. It is unknown if this effect would be seen in a real-world population. This is a single-center retrospective analysis of all patients receiving single-agent PD-1 inhibitor for unresectable stage III or stage IV melanoma between 2012 and 2018. The majority of patients had cutaneous melanoma and were elderly (put in median and range). Totally 33.3% were BRAF mutated and 66.7% had PD-1 inhibitor as first-line treatment for metastatic disease. Also, 22% of patients had brain metastases at presentation. Of the 87 patients included in this analysis, 48 (55%) developed at least one irAE. Dermatologic toxicities were the most common irAE. The median time to develop any irAE was 12 weeks. Only one patient died of immune-related toxicity. Overall survival in the population of patients that had an irAE was significantly greater than those that did not have any toxicity (21.1 vs. 7.5 months; P < 0.001). The development of endocrine toxicity had the strongest correlation with survival as did patient with grade 1 (NCI V.5) toxicity. The development of multiple toxicities did not correlate with survival. In patients with multiple toxicities, the type of irAE that presented initially did not impact the outcome. These findings add to the growing body of literature suggesting an association between irAEs and immune-checkpoint inhibitor efficacy while suggesting that this benefit may depend on the type of toxicity and severity.

Impact of Baseline Corticosteroids on Immunotherapy Efficacy in Patients With Advanced Melanoma.

This is a 2-center, retrospective study which aimed to evaluate the effect of baseline corticosteroid use on immunotherapy efficacy in patients with advanced melanoma. We included all patients with advanced unresectable and metastatic melanoma on single-agent programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitors at the Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario and London Regional Cancer Program. We defined baseline corticosteroid use as prednisone-equivalent of ≥10 mg within 30 days of immunotherapy initiation. Our study had 166 patients in total, and 25 were taking corticosteroids at the initiation of the PD-1 inhibitor. Baseline prednisone-equivalent ≥10 mg did not have effect on median overall survival (hazard ratio=1.590, 95% confidence interval: 0.773-3.270, P=0.208). However, a higher dose of baseline prednisone-equivalent ≥50 mg was independently associated with poor median overall survival (hazard ratio=2.313, 95% confidence interval: 1.103-4.830, P=0.026) when compared with baseline prednisone-equivalent 0-49 mg, even when controlled for confounders including baseline Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group ≥2 and baseline brain metastasis. Consideration should be made to decrease the use of unnecessary steroids as much as possible before initiation of PD-1 inhibitor treatment.

Safety of Immunotherapy Rechallenge After Immune-related Adverse Events in Patients With Advanced Cancer.

This retrospective study aimed to investigate the safety profile of continuing or rechallenging patients with advanced cancer who developed grade≥2 immune-related adverse events (irAEs) on immunotherapy-based regimens. Our study had 25, 20, and 40 patients (N=85) in the Treatment Continuation (TCG), Non-Rechallenge (NRG), and Rechallenge Groups (RG), respectively. Subsequent irAEs recurrence were more common in RG than TCG and NRG (78% vs. 56% vs. 25%, P<0.001). The same subsequent irAEs recurrences occurred on 42% of RG, 4% of TCG, and 15% of NRG (P<0.001). On the RG, there was a nonstatistical trend of shortening interval time between time from treatment rechallenge to subsequent irAEs when compared with time from first treatment to initial grade≥2 irAEs (5.86 vs. 8.86 wk, P=0.114). Patients who had cardiac irAEs were not rechallenged. Several high-risk features were identified to prognosticate risk of irAEs recurrences upon treatment rechallenge, including age 65 years and above (P=0.007), programmed cell death protein 1 inhibitors (P<0.001), grade 3 irAEs (P=0.003), pneumonitis type (P=0.048), any systemic corticosteroid use (P=0.001)/high-dose systemic corticosteroid use (P=0.007)/prolonged ≥4-week corticosteroid use (P=0.001) for irAEs management, and early development of irAEs (P=0.003). Our study concluded that it was relatively safe to continue or rechallenge patients with advanced cancers on immunotherapy-based regimens postdevelopment of certain grade≥2 irAEs, except for cardiac, neurological, or any grade 4 irAEs. Subsequent irAEs were common, no more severe, involved the same organ sites, and occurred more quickly than the original irAE. Close monitoring of all potential irAEs is required when rechallenging a patient on immunotherapy, especially for patients with high-risk features.

Prognosticating role of serum eosinophils on immunotherapy efficacy in patients with advanced melanoma.

Aim: To evaluate serum eosinophilia (≥500 peripheral eosinophil counts/microliter) in prognosticating immunotherapy (IO) efficacy. Methodology: A retrospective study of 86 patients with advanced melanoma on PD-1 inhibitors. Results: Eosinophilia-on-IO was an independent prognosticating factor for median OS (HR :0.223; 95% CI: 0.088-0.567; p = 0.002). 'Late eosinophilia' (≥1 year from IO start date) group had better median OS (31.9 vs 24.1 vs 13.0 months; p = 0.002) when compared with 'early eosinophilia' (<1 year from IO start date) and 'no eosinophilia' groups, respectively. Conclusion: Eosinophilia-on-IO and its timing were associated with better IO efficacy in patients with advanced melanoma. Our findings provided insights on potential therapeutic benefit of inducing eosinophilia at certain interval time to obtain a longer durable immunotherapy response.

Serum neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio in prognosticating immunotherapy efficacy.

Aim: To examine neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in prognosticating immunotherapy efficacy. Methods: A retrospective study of 156 patients with metastatic melanoma and non-small-cell lung cancer on PD-1 inhibitors. Results: Baseline NLR ≥5 was associated with worse progression-free survival (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.53; 95% CI: 1.01-2.31; p = 0.043) but nonsignificant worse overall survival trend (HR: 1.51; 95% CI: 0.98-2.34; p = 0.064). PLR ≥200 was associated with worse overall survival (HR: 1.94; 95% CI: 1.29-2.94; p = 0.002) and worse progression-free survival (HR: 1.894; 95% CI: 1.27-2.82; p = 0.002). NLR or PLR are prognosticating factors regardless of cancer types, with PLR having a stronger association with outcomes than NLR. Conclusion: High baseline NLR or PLR (alone and combined) were associated with worse immunotherapy efficacy regardless of cancer type, indicating their potential role as an agnostic marker for immunotherapy efficacy.