Molecular Predictors of Response to Pembrolizumab in Thymic Carcinoma

Overview

Journal Cell Rep Med

Publisher Cell Press

Specialties Biology
General Medicine

Date 2021 Oct 8

PMID 34622229

Citations 27

Authors

Yongfeng He

Archana Ramesh

Yuriy Gusev

Krithika Bhuvaneshwar

Giuseppe Giaccone

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Thymic carcinoma is rare and has a poorer prognosis than thymomas. The treatment options are limited after failure of platinum-based chemotherapy. We previously performed a single-center phase II study of pembrolizumab in patients with advanced thymic carcinoma, showing a 22.5% response rate. Here, we characterize the genomic and transcriptomic profile of thymic carcinoma samples from 10 patients (5 non-responders versus 5 responders) in this cohort, with the main aim of identifying potential predictors of response to immunotherapy. We find that expression of and alterations in genes or pathways that correlated with PD-L1 expression ( and ) could be potential predictors for response or resistance to immunotherapy in patients with advanced thymic carcinoma. Our study provides insights into potential predictive markers/pathways to select patients with thymic carcinoma for anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.

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