Frontiers in Medicine (Apr 2019)

Association of Baseline Serum Levels of CXCL5 With the Efficacy of Nivolumab in Advanced Melanoma

  • Taku Fujimura,
  • Yota Sato,
  • Kayo Tanita,
  • Chunbing Lyu,
  • Yumi Kambayashi,
  • Ryo Amagai,
  • Atsushi Otsuka,
  • Yasuhiro Fujisawa,
  • Koji Yoshino,
  • Shigeto Matsushita,
  • Hiroshi Uchi,
  • Yuki Yamamoto,
  • Hiroo Hata,
  • Takeru Funakoshi,
  • Yumi Nonomura,
  • Ryota Tanaka,
  • Hisako Okuhira,
  • Naoko Wada,
  • Akira Hashimoto,
  • Setsuya Aiba

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2019.00086
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6

Abstract

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Anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD1) antibodies are in wide use for the treatment of various cancers. PD1 antibody-based immunotherapy, co-administration of nivolumab and ipilimumab, is one of the optimal immunotherapies, especially in advanced melanoma with high tumor mutation burden. Since this combined therapy leads to a high frequency of serious immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in patients with advanced melanoma, biomarkers are needed to evaluate nivolumab efficacy to avoid serious irAEs caused by ipilimumab. This study analyzed baseline serum levels of CXCL5, CXCL10, and CCL22 in 46 cases of advanced cutaneous melanoma treated with nivolumab. Baseline serum levels of CXCL5 were significantly higher in responders than in non-responders. In contrast, there were no significant differences in baseline serum levels of CXCL10 and CCL22 between responders and non-responders. These results suggest that baseline serum levels of CXCL5 may be useful as a biomarker for identifying patients with advanced cutaneous melanoma most likely to benefit from anti-melanoma immunotherapy.

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