Circulating Autoantibodies Could Predict Patient Response to Immunotherapy

The following article features coverage from the IASLC North America Conference on Lung Cancer 2019 meeting. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage.

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are treated with immunotherapy that targets programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) benefit from treatment in part because their immune systems produce autoantibody-associated neoantigens in response to the therapy.¹ Data presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019) in Chicago, Illinois, indicate that certain baseline autoantibodies could serve as biomarkers that can indicate which patients would benefit from PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapy, and which might be at risk of adverse events related to the treatment.

Lead author Imad Tarhoni, MD, MS, of Rush University in Chicago, and colleagues evaluated 81 patients who had been treated for NSCLC with non-frontline PD-1/PD-L1 for more than a dozen cancer autoantibodies, including alpha-enolase (ENO1), cancer/testis antigen 1β (CTAG1B/NY-ESO-1), cyclin-dependent kinase 4 inhibitor A (p16-INK4a), G2/mitotic-specific cyclin-B1 (CCNB1), galactose-specific lectin-1 (Galectin 1), galactose-specific lectin-3 (Galectin 3), heat shock protein 60 (HSP60), hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF1α), insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2 (IMP-2), insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 3 (IMP-3), mucin 1 (MUC1), receptor tyrosine-protein kinase (HER2/ErbB2), sex determining region Y (SRY)-box 2 (SOX2), survivin (BIRC5), and tumor protein P53 (P53).

The analysis showed that one antibody, IMP2, was “significantly associated with time to progression,” while several other antibodies (P53, HIF1α, HSP60, and CTAG1B/NY-ESO-1) were linked to overall survival. Some autoimmune adverse events, such as pneumonitis and skin events, were associated with lower levels of other antibodies.

“Baseline autoantibodies appeared to have a potential benefit in selecting candidates for PD-1/PDL-1 targeted immunotherapy in metastatic NSCLC,” the authors wrote, adding that “Further studies are ongoing.”

Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of the IASLC NACLC 2019 meeting by visiting the conference page.

Reference

1. Tarhoni I, Kollipara R, Moudgalya H, et al. Prognostic value of baseline autoantibodies in metastatic NSCLC patients receiving PD-/PDL-1 targeted immunotherapy. Presented at: International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019); October 10-12, 2019: Chicago, Illinois. Abstract OA01.02.