A tumor vasculature–based imaging biomarker for predicting response and survival in patients with lung cancer treated with checkpoint inhibitors
Menée à partir de données portant sur 507 patients atteints d'un cancer du poumon non à petites cellules traité par inhibiteur de point de contrôle immunitaire, cette étude évalue l'association entre les caractéristiques d'un indicateur mesurant la tortuosité vasculaire à partir d'images tomographiques et la réponse thérapeutique ainsi que la survie des patients
Tumor vasculature is a key component of the tumor microenvironment that can influence tumor behavior and therapeutic resistance. We present a new imaging biomarker, quantitative vessel tortuosity (QVT), and evaluate its association with response and survival in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapies. A total of 507 cases were used to evaluate different aspects of the QVT biomarkers. QVT features were extracted from computed tomography imaging of patients before and after ICI therapy to capture the tortuosity, curvature, density, and branching statistics of the nodule vasculature. Our results showed that QVT features were prognostic of OS (HR = 3.14, 0.95% CI = 1.2 to 9.68, P = 0.0006, C-index = 0.61) and could predict ICI response with AUCs of 0.66, 0.61, and 0.67 on three validation sets. Our study shows that QVT imaging biomarker could potentially aid in predicting and monitoring response to ICI in patients with NSCLC. Tumor vasculature imaging biomarker can potentially aid in predicting and monitoring response to ICI in patients with NSCLC.
Science Advances , article en libre accès, 2021