Association between response to anti-PD-1 treatment and blood soluble PD-L1 and IL-8 changes in patients with NSCLC

Abstract

In this study, we explored the dynamic changes in blood sPD-L1 and its clinical value during anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. First, we established a sandwich ELISA for functional sPD-L1 that can bind to PD-1 and has biological functions. By monitoring functional sPD-L1 in 39 NSCLC patients treated with anti-PD-1 antibodies, we found a positive correlation between baseline sPD-L1 and tissue PD-L1 (P = 0.0376, r = 0.3581), with patients with lymph node metastasis having higher sPD-L1 levels (P = 0.0037) than those without lymph node metastasis. Although baseline functional sPD-L1 and PFS did not correlate significantly in this study, changes in sPD-L1 in patients with different clinical responses showed different trends. Blood sPD-L1 increased in 93% of patients after two cycles of anti-PD-1 treatment (P = 0.0054); sPD-L1 in nonresponsive patients continued to increase (P = 0.0181), but sPD-L1 started to decline in responsive patients. Blood IL-8 levels were associated with tumor load, and when combined with IL-8, the evaluation accuracy of sPD-L1 improved to 86.4%. This study preliminarily shows that the combination of sPD-L1 and IL-8 is a convenient and effective method for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in NSCLC patients.

Soluble Programmed Death-Ligand 1 (sPD-L1) as a Promising Marker for Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Correlations With Clinical and Demographic Characteristics

“…Their study indicates that observing changes in sPD-L1 levels and IL-8 can offer valuable information on the patient's response to treatment. This technique can serve as a valuable tool in evaluating the effectiveness of anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in NSCLC patients [ 42 ].…”

Evaluation of the clinical application value of cytokine expression profiles in the differential diagnosis of prostate cancer

“…In addition, recent studies have indicated that interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) have different expressions in PCa tissues [14][15][16]. Another study found that interleukin-8 (IL-8) is also expressed in various cancers such as gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, and lung cancer to varying degrees [17][18][19][20]. Additionally, the remaining relevant reports include interleukin-2(IL-2), interleukin-4(IL-4), interleukin-5(IL-50), Interferonα(IFN-α), Interferon-γ(IFN-γ), Interleukin-1β(IL-1β), and Interleukin-12p70(IL-12p70), all of which also associated with the occurrence and development of prostate disorders.…”