The following is a summary of “Low tumor interleukin-1β expression predicts a limited effect of adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with completely resected lung adenocarcinoma: An identification and validation study,” published in the April 2024 issue of Pulmonology by Safi et al.

Adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy following complete resection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) offers modest survival benefits yet lacks validated biomarkers to predict treatment efficacy. In this study, the researchers assessed 27 cytokines in tumor specimens from a discovery cohort (n = 97) using multiplex immunoassay. Half of the patients received adjuvant chemotherapy, while the others were observed. Multivariate Cox models evaluated prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS), supplemented by a tree-based method to identify predictive factors for RFS. Validation was conducted in an independent cohort (n = 93).

Among patients with low tumor IL-1β expression, outcomes following adjuvant chemotherapy were inferior compared to observation, findings consistent across both discovery and validation cohorts. Conversely, adjuvant chemotherapy significantly prolonged RFS and OS, specifically in patients with high IL-1β-expressing tumors in the validation cohort. Notably, 54% of patients in both cohorts received adjuvant chemotherapy, with a majority completing the intended treatment cycles. These results highlight low tumor IL-1β expression as a potential biomarker indicating limited efficacy of adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy post-resection of pulmonary adenocarcinoma. This discovery underscores the importance of personalized treatment approaches guided by tumor biomarkers, potentially enhancing therapeutic decision-making in clinical practice.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2531043724000436