Can the plasma PD-1 levels predict the presence and efficiency of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in patients with metastatic melanoma?. (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Incorvaia, Lorena; Badalamenti, Giuseppe; Rinaldi, Gaetana; Iovanna, Juan Lucio; Olive, Daniel; Swayden, Mirna; Terruso, Lidia; Vincenzi, Bruno; Fulfaro, Fabio; Bazan, Viviana; Russo, Antonio; Fanale, Daniele
• Is Part Of: Therapeutic advances in medical oncology. Volume 11(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: brisk TILs -- immune response -- melanoma -- plasma PD-1 -- plasma PD-L1 -- tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes; Oncology -- Periodicals; Cancer -- Treatment -- Periodicals; 616.994005
• DOI: 10.1177/1758835919848872
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1758-8340

Abstract

Background: The immune response in melanoma patients is locally affected by presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), generally divided into brisk, nonbrisk, and absent. Several studies have shown that a greater presence of TILs, especially brisk, in primary melanoma is associated with a better prognosis and higher survival rate. Patients and Methods: We investigated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) the correlation between PD-1 levels in plasma and the presence/absence of TILs in 28 patients with metastatic melanoma. Results: Low plasma PD-1 levels were correlated with brisk TILs in primary melanoma, whereas intermediate values correlated with the nonbrisk TILs, and high PD-1 levels with absent TILs. Although the low number of samples did not allow us to obtain a statistically significant correlation between the plasma PD-1 levels and the patients' overall survival depending on the absence/presence of TILs, the median survival of patients having brisk type TILs was 5 months higher than that of patients with absent and nonbrisk TILs. Conclusions: This work highlights the ability of measuring the plasma PD-1 levels in order to predict the prognosis of patients with untreated metastatic melanoma without a BRAF mutation at the time of diagnosis.