Efficacy of natural killer cell activity as a biomarker for predicting immunotherapy response in non-small cell lung cancer

Background The establishment of biomarkers that can be used to predict the response to immunotherapy for malignancy is extremely important. In particular, noninvasive analysis of immune cells from peripheral blood before treatment has gained increased attention, and natural killer (NK) cell activity has been shown to be related to treatment response. Here, we aimed to confirm the relationship between the response to immunotherapy and NK cell activity. Methods In this prospective observational study, patients with advanced NSCLC who were scheduled for immunotherapy from October 2018 to December 2019 were enrolled. Baseline NK cell activity was compared according to the best clinical response to immunotherapy. Results A total of 54 patients with advanced NSCLC were enrolled, and 34 patients were analyzed. The baseline NK cell activity was significantly higher in the non‐PD group than in the PD group (P = 0.002). At the cutoff level of ≥1200 pg/mL, baseline NK cell activity yielded a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 68.4% in predicting the response to immunotherapy (AUC = 0.8, P
In this prospective observational study, patients with advanced NSCLC who were scheduled for immunotherapy from October 2018 to December 2019 were enrolled. The baseline NK cell activity was significantly higher in the non‐PD group than in the PD group. NK cell activity from peripheral blood before immunotherapy is a non‐invasive, simple, and novel way to predicting the treatment response in patients with NSCLC.