The molecular make-up of lung tumours could help identify patients who might benefit from immunotherapy treatment up front, a US study has found.
The findings are “an important step forward” in understanding which patients are likely to benefit from immunotherapy, said lead scientist David Carbone.
The latest trial compared the drug nivolumab with standard chemotherapy in 530 patients who hadn’t been treated with cancer drugs previously.
The patients all had advanced stage lung cancer, or lung cancer that had returned, and their tumour cells carried PD-1’s molecular partner PD-L1 on their surface.
In patients whose tumours had high levels of the PD-L1 molecule and lots of immune-stimulating genetic faults, three in four patients’ tumours (75%) responded to nivolumab, compared with just 16% in those who had low levels of both.
One in four patients in these groups responded to chemotherapy.
