Clinical Utility of Inflammatory and Nutritious Index as Therapeutic Prediction of Nivolumab plus Ipilimumab in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

INTRODUCTION: Biomarkers for predicting the outcome of ipilimumab plus nivolumab (Nivo-Ipi) treatment in cancer patients have not been identified. Herein, we investigated the prognostic significance of inflammatory and nutritional markers in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving Nivo-Ipi. METHODS: Our study retrospectively analyzed 101 patients with advanced NSCLC who received Nivo-Ipi at a single institution. Inflammatory and nutritional indices were correlated with patient outcomes and included the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI), and Glasgow prognostic score (GPS). RESULTS: The NLR significantly correlated with the PLR, SII, PNI, ALI, and GPS. Regarding therapeutic efficacy, the NLR, SII, and PNI predicted a partial response, and all indices predicted progressive disease. In subgroup analyses, the SII, PNI, and ALI predicted the outcome of patients with adenocarcinoma, whereas only the PNI predicted the outcome of patients with non-adenocarcinoma. The PNI and SII were the most useful indices in patients with a programmed death ligand-1 expression level of <1% and ≥1%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The NLR, PLR, SII, PNI, ALI, and GPS were significantly associated with the outcome of Nivo-Ipi treatment in patients with NSCLC. The PNI was the most suitable marker regardless of histological type. The SII and PNI were the most promising markers for patients with and without PD-L1 expression, respectively.

Development of in-situ Raman diagnosis technique of eosinophil esophagitis.

The spectra of the live tissue with blood flow measured with 785 nm-excitation light showed a very weak signal due to hemoglobin (Hb). It suggested the possibility to detect eosinophil accumulation in the tissue with the 785 nm-excitation light. The excitation wavelength of 633 nm induced strong fluorescence of sapphire glass that is a material of the ball lens of BHRP (Ball lens top hollow optical fiber Raman probe). On the other hand, the previous study suggested that eosinophil including eosinophil peroxidase (EPO) that showed a strong resonance Raman effect with 633 nm-excitation light. The purpose of the present study is to collect basic information and to evaluate the viability of Raman spectroscopic analysis for the detection of eosinophil accumulation in the live esophagus. BHRP with a sapphire ball lens with 500 µm diameter was applied for measurement of live esophagus tissue of a mouse. In this study, Raman spectra of eosinophil were measured with 633 and 785 nm-excitation. The Raman spectra of eosinophil showed a strong contribution of EPO, suggested that a heme chromophore in EPO had pre-resonance enhancement via Q band with the 785 nm-excitation light. Principal component analysis (PCA) is applied for the analysis of Raman spectra of eosinophil, erythrocyte and other granulocytes. Eosinophil was successfully discriminated from other blood cells in the PCA score plots built for the datasets of the spectra measured with 633 and 785 nm-excitation wavelengths. Consequently, our study demonstrates that Raman spectroscopy with 785 nm-excitation had high viability for in situ analysis of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering Spectroscopy Using a Double-Wavelength-Emission Electronically Tuned Ti:Sapphire Laser.

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for Raman imaging technology. In contrast, conventional spontaneous Raman spectroscopy is often used for biological analysis with multivariate analysis. This study develops a new type of CARS instrument with a double-wavelength-emission, background-free, electronically tuned Ti:sapphire laser (DW-ETL). DW-ETL generates two laser pulses with different wavelengths simultaneously within its single resonator. The pulse wavelength and buildup time are regulated by acousto-optical tunable filter in the resonator. The present DW-ETL CARS system is free from any mechanical movement to measure a CARS spectrum by controlling each laser pulse of the emission throughout the fingerprint region. Consequently, it is theoretically able to provide stable CARS spectra to apply multivariate analysis in biological applications. The present study demonstrates that the DW-ETL CARS system provides spectra of biomedical samples in the full finger-print region, and the stability and controllability of the system are evaluated.