Department of Infectious Diseases, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Imaging Center, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Immunol. 2024 Oct 24;15:1467429. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1467429. eCollection 2024.
Compared with tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) monotherapy, TKI combined with PD1 can improve the therapeutic effect of liver cancer and has been widely used in clinical practice. However, there is a lack of effective biomarkers to identify patients who would benefit more from this combination therapy. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate whether baseline lymphocyte counts can identify patients with liver cancer who would benefit from targeted immune combination therapy.
Data from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who received TKIs or TKIs in combination with PD1 between June 2018 and June 2020 were retrospectively collected. The patients were divided into high and low groups based on the median absolute count of peripheral lymphocytes before systemic therapy and differences in overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) between TKI and TKI+PD1 were compared between the two groups.
In total, 72 patients were included in this study, with a median follow-up of 1.5 years. Both PFS and OS in the TKI+PD1 group showed a good prognostic trend (p = 0.058 and p = 0.077, respectively). Subgroup analyses based on peripheral blood lymphocyte counts showed that the combination regimen had a significant PFS and OS advantage only in patients with high peripheral blood lymphocyte counts (p = 0.036 and p = 0.031, respectively), but not in patients with low absolute peripheral blood lymphocyte counts (p = 0.819 and p = 0.913, respectively).
Peripheral blood lymphocyte count is a simple and effective biomarker that can be used to identify patients with liver cancer who will benefit more from TKI+PD-1 combination therapy.
与酪氨酸激酶抑制剂（TKI）单药治疗相比，TKI 联合 PD1 可提高肝癌的治疗效果，已广泛应用于临床实践。然而，缺乏有效的生物标志物来识别更能从这种联合治疗中获益的患者。因此，本研究旨在评估基线淋巴细胞计数是否可以识别出更能从靶向免疫联合治疗中获益的肝癌患者。
回顾性收集 2018 年 6 月至 2020 年 6 月期间接受 TKI 或 TKI 联合 PD1 治疗的肝细胞癌（HCC）患者的数据。根据系统治疗前外周血淋巴细胞绝对计数的中位数，将患者分为高和低两组，比较两组之间 TKI 和 TKI+PD1 的总生存期（OS）和无进展生存期（PFS）差异。
本研究共纳入 72 例患者，中位随访时间为 1.5 年。TKI+PD1 组的 PFS 和 OS 均表现出良好的预后趋势（p=0.058 和 p=0.077）。基于外周血淋巴细胞计数的亚组分析显示，联合方案仅在高外周血淋巴细胞计数患者中具有显著的 PFS 和 OS 优势（p=0.036 和 p=0.031），而在低绝对外周血淋巴细胞计数患者中则没有（p=0.819 和 p=0.913）。
外周血淋巴细胞计数是一种简单有效的生物标志物，可用于识别更能从 TKI+PD-1 联合治疗中获益的肝癌患者。
