Blood-based Biomarkers in the Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Treatment in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer / 中国肺癌杂志

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have transformed the treatment landscape of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Biomarkers are essential for guiding precision immunotherapy. Tissue-based programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression and tumor mutational burden (TMB) are currently widely used biomarkers for selecting patients for immunotherapy. However, tissue specimens are often difficult to reach and couldn't overcome spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Blood biomarkers offer an alternative non-invasive solution that could provide a complete insight on patient's immune status and tumor as well, and show their potential in predicting the outcome as well as in monitoring response to immunotherapy. In this article, we summarize current knowledge on blood biomarkers in NSCLC patients treated with ICI, and we hope to provide more references for development of novel biomarkers.
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Progress of Biomarkers in Diagnosis of Bone Metastases of Lung Cancer / 中国肺癌杂志

Bone is one of the most metastatic sites of advanced malignant tumors. With the continuous improvement of diagnosis and treatment of malignant tumors, the survival time of patients is prolonged and incidence of bone metastases also increases. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. It is estimated that the incidence of bone metastases in patients advanced lung cancer is about 30%-40%. The traditional diagnosis of bone metastases in lung cancer is based on clinical symptoms, X ray, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pathology. Recently, a large number of exploratory studies have reported blood biomarkers as indicators of bone metastasis screening and efficacy evaluation. In this review, we summarize the progress of biomarkers in diagnosis of bone metastases of lung cancer.
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Expression and clinical significance of CN-Ⅱ in non-small cell lung cancer tissues / 中国肿瘤临床

Objective:Cytosolic 5'-nucleotidase (CN-Ⅱ), a nucleotide kinase, exhibits both 5'-nucleotidase and nucleoside phos-photransferase activities. Abnormal CN-Ⅱexpression may be correlated with the resistance of nucleoside analogs in anticancer drugs. This study was designed to investigate CN-Ⅱexpression in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues and its correlation with the clinicopathological parameters as well as the prognosis of patients treated with gemcitabine. Methods:Immunohistochemistry was used to detect CN-Ⅱexpression in 116 cases of paraffin-embedded NSCLC samples. The correlations with the clinicopathological pa-rameters and the response to gemcitabine chemotherapy of CN-Ⅱwere analyzed through the Chi-square test. Log-rank test was used to determine whether or not CN-Ⅱexpression is correlated with the overall survival of patients. Results:The positive rate of CN-Ⅱwas 53.4% in 116 NSCLC tissues. No significant correlation existed between CN-Ⅱ expression and the clinicopathological parameters. Among the 67 of the 116 patients who received gemcitabine chemotherapy, those with tumor progression (positive rate of 57.6%) exhib-ited higher CN-Ⅱexpression than those with therapeutic efficacy (positive rate of 30.4%, P=0.008) and disease-control chemotherapy (positive rate of 36.7%, P=0.013). The progression-free survival was 4.5 and 5.5 months in the CN-Ⅱ-positive and CN-II-negative groups, respectively, with significant differences (95%CI:4.452 to 6.148, P=0.041). Correspondingly, the overall survival was 9.5 and 11.0 months in the two groups (95%CI:8.667 to 13.333, P=0.282). Conclusion:CN-Ⅱmay be a prognostic factor for gemcitabine chemotherapy in NSCLC patients.