Immuno-Oncology – WCLC 2017

In the randomised, double-blind phase III trial PACIFIC, durvalumab has shown to improve PFS while upholding quality of life measures in locally advanced, unresectable NSCLC patients after concurrent chemoradiation.

New research showed that among small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients, the efficacy of using nivolumab with or without (±) ipilimumab was enhanced among those with a high tumor mutation burden (TMB).

In the 3-year-survival analysis of the phase II study POPLAR atezolizumab demonstrated superior 2-year and 3-year overall survival (OS) benefit compared with docetaxel in patients with advanced NSCLC.

Changes in LDH above the upper limit of normal values at cycle 2 and in NLR ≥ 5 at 6 weeks predicts for disease progression at the first tumour response evaluation.

The role of immunotherapy for patients with uncommon EGFR mutations, ROS1 and C-MET who express PD-L1 is still unclear.

Immunotherapy has differential effects at different organ sites of metastases.

Low absolute neutrophil count (ANC), high absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), and high absolute eosinophil count (AEC) was associated with a better outcome of nivolumab treatment.

Interferon-Gamma (IFNG) production by T-cells play a critical role in anti-cancer immune responses.

There is a positive correlation between increasing cutpoints of PD-L1 expression and ORR and 1yr PFS, but little correlation with 1yr OS in treatment naive and pretreated patients.

The 1% cut-off value for PD-L1 might become a better predictive marker than the other cut-off values, and even minimal expression of PD-L1 protein may have a negative prognostic significance.

The expression of PD-L1 was up-regulated after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy when using 5%, 10%, 20% expression threshold.