Tian Zhang: Our latest paper on circulating immune biomarkers for metastatic kidney cancer
Tian Zhang, Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, shared an article on X she and her colleagues authored:
“Check out our latest paper on circulating immune biomarkers for metastatic kidney cancer! While immunotherapy combos have improved outcomes in RCC, predictive biomarkers for ICI response and resistance are elusive. We attempt to find circulating biomarkers for ICIs.
We prospectively banked plasma and PBMCs from 33 patients with RCC treated with ICIs and evaluated plasma cytokines and circulating cellular subsets. 23 had ipi/nivo as first-line treatment and 9 nivo alone; 1 patient had cabo/nivo. 22 had stable/progressing dz and 11 had responses.
Interestingly, higher circulating monocytes esp the CD14+/CD16- subset were seen in patients with ICI responses. These are the white blood cells in circulation that set up shop in the tumor as macrophages.
In addition, baseline cytokines IL12/IL23, MIP-1a, MIP-1b, ICAM-1, VCAM-1, IL-8, and TNFa were higher in patients with ICI responses. MIP-1a and MIP-1b interesting as these are macrophage chemokines.
Changes in TARC, placental growth factor, and VEGF also changed on treatment. While these are not common cytokines to obtain during kidney cancer treatment, they are hypothesis generating for future analyses.
Notably, we had an exceptional responder who had an amazing response to ipi/nivo – one of our 1st patients on standard ipi/nivo – who had high levels of these 7 cytokines. Perhaps we can find more patients like him!!
Thanks Joyce Hwang, a current fellow at Duke Cancer Institute, Andy Nixon, Eda Holl, and biostats Yuan Wu for the perseverance over the years — several rejections and many revisions to final pub. Hopefully we will have other larger series of patients that validates this early work!
Read more details at JCI Insight!”
Authors: Joyce K. Hwang et al.
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