Pretreatment nutritional status and response to checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer

Background: Checkpoint inhibitors are integral to non-small-cell lung cancer treatment. Existing data suggests that nutritional status may play a role in antitumor immunity.

Materials & methods: This retrospective study of 106 non-small-cell lung cancer patients who started checkpoint inhibitors between 2014 and 2017 at our institution assessed relationship of nutritional parameters to overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival.

Results: Mean age was 68.7 ± 9.2 years and 59.4% patients were male. On multivariate analysis for OS, hypoalbuminemia and significant weight loss were prognostic at p-values of 0.0005 and 0.0052, respectively. We noted a parabolic association between age and OS (p = 0.026, 0.0025).

Conclusion: In our study, some malnutrition parameters were associated with decreased OS. U-shape relationship between age and OS noted here warrants further evaluation.