Sarcopenia and high NLR are associated with the development of
hyperprogressive disease after second-line pembrolizumab in patients
with non-small-cell lung cancer
Abstract
The aim of this multicenter retrospective study was to evaluate the
incidence of hyperprogressive disease after treatment with pembrolizumab
as a second-line treatment in patients (n=167) with non-small-cell lung
cancer (NSCLC) with metastatic disease whose tumors expressed programmed
death-ligand-1 in ≥1% and to search for factors associated with its
development. All patients received platinum-containing chemotherapy as a
first-line treatment. The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet
to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and their derivations were retrospectively
analyzed. The psoas major muscle area (PMMA) was calculated at the L3
position on computed tomography before chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
Patients with ∆PMMA≥10% were considered to have sarcopenia (low muscle
mass). We also performed multinomial logistic regression to estimate the
effects of hematological biomarkers and ∆PMMA on the response to
immunotherapy. Hyperprogressors (HPs) had significantly higher NLRs,
PLRs and ∆PMMA levels than the other patients. Moreover, in multivariate
regression analysis, higher levels of ∆PMMA were associated with a
decreased likelihood of being a progressor (P) (OR, 0.81; 95% CI,
0.65-0.99; p=0.047) or a nonprogressor (NP) (OR, 0.76; 95% CI,
0.62-0.94; p=0.012) vs an HP. In multivariate analysis, higher NLRs
tended to decrease the likelihood of being a P vs an HP (OR, 0.66; 95%
CI, 0.42-1.06; p=0.09) and significantly decrease the likelihood of
being an NP vs an HP (OR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.28-0.69; p<0.0001).
Our data suggest that a high pre-immunotherapy NLR and the presence of
sarcopenia are potential risk factors for the development of
hyperprogressive disease.