Dados do Resumo

Título

Evaluation of the prognostic potential of CD24 and NFIL3 in melanoma patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors

Introdução

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have significantly improved melanoma treatment and outcomes, though many patients fail to respond to this therapy. A study conducted by the Immuno-Oncology group at Barretos Cancer Hospital (BCH) identified two genes - cluster of differentiation 24 (CD24) and nuclear factor, interleukin 3 regulated (NFIL3) - as potential indicators of response to Programmed Cell Death 1 (PD-1) inhibitors. This highlights the importance of further exploring these genes as biomarkers in melanoma treatment.

Objetivo

To assess the predictive value of CD24 and NFIL3 markers for anti-PD-1 response in a cohort of melanoma patients treated at BCH.

Métodos

The study was evaluated and approved by the institution's ethics and research committee (CEP), under the number 1772/2019. For this study, 200 patients with advanced melanoma treated between January 2016 and December 2024 at BCH will be selected. Clinical data related to the treatment response of these patients will be collected and stored in the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) platform, and then correlated with the protein expression of the markers CD24 and NFIL3 using immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence techniques. The clinical, histopathological and immunohistochemical data will be stored, categorized, and analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics v. 26.0 software.

Resultados

Of the 200 patients to be selected, 75 have already been included, and their clinical and histopathological data were collected: 31 were classified as responders (R) and 44 as non-responders (NR). The average age was approximately 59 and 56 years, respectively. In terms of lesion location, the primary site was most on the trunk in R (35.5%) and on the lower limbs in NR (36.4%). The predominant histological type in R was acrolentiginous, while in NR, it was nodular. Key prognostic factors included the absence of microsatellitosis (74.2% in R and 90.9% in NR; p = 0.009), clinicopathological staging (61.3% with stages III/IV in R, compared to 47.7% in NR; p = 0.073), and BRAF mutation status (68.2% were wild-type in NR; p = 0.031). After collecting data from the remaining patients, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence will be carried out to assess the expression of CD24 and NFIL3 markers, making it possible to correlate their expression with the response to ICIs in these patients.

Conclusões

It is expected that patients who do not respond to ICI will have higher expression of CD24 and NFIL3, confirming the previous gene expression results. The markers are anticipated to have adequate predictive value and could form an immunohistochemical/immunofluorescence analysis panel for clinical application.

Financiador do resumo

FAPESP - 2019/07111-9 and 2024/05148-0

Palavras Chave

Melanoma; CD24; NFIL3