Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) have shown benefit from anti-PD-1 therapies. However, not all patients experience tumor shrinkage, durable responses or prolonged survival, demonstrating the need to find response markers. In blood samples from NSCLC and RCC patients obtained before and after anti-PD-1 treatment, we studied leukocytes by complete blood cell count, lymphocyte subsets using flow cytometry and plasma concentration of nine soluble mediators, in order to find predictive biomarkers of response and to study changes produced after anti-PD-1 therapy. In baseline samples, discriminant analysis revealed a combination of four variables that helped differentiate stable disease-response (SD-R) from progressive disease (PD) patients: augmented frequency of central memory CD4 + T cells and leukocyte count was associated with response while increased percentage of PD-L1 + natural killer cells and naïve CD4 + T cells was associated with lack of response. After therapy, differential changes between responders and non-responders were found in leukocytes, T cells and TIM-3 + T cells. Patients with progressive disease showed an increase in the frequency of TIM-3 expressing CD4 + and CD8 + T cells, whereas SD-R patients showed a decrease in these subsets. Our findings indicate that a combination of immune variables from peripheral blood (PB) could be useful to distinguish response groups in NSCLC and RCC patients treated with anti-PD-1 therapy. Frequency of TIM-3 + T cells showed differential changes after treatment in PD vs SD-R patients, suggesting that it may be an interesting marker for monitoring progression during therapy.

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and other two new lesions in the right upper lobe. One was a 10mm nodule close to the scar of primary tumor, which had not found at chest CT from three months ago. The other was a 15mm nodule apart from the scar, which existed before the alectinib treatment and had got larger gradually. PET-CT revealed the high fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake of only two new lesions. We performed complete VATS right upper lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection for treatment and diagnosis. Histopathlogical diagnoses: No residual viable cell was found in the primary lesion. The lesion close to the scar of the primary lesion was adenocarcinoma (ALK-rearranged), which was thought to be a recurrent lesion because of resemblance to brain metastasis in pathological tissue. The lesion apart from the main lesion was pT1bN0M0 StageIB squamous cell carcinoma, which was thought to be primary lung cancer. Alectinib was continued after the operation, and chest CT shows no sign of recurrence so far. Conclusion:We experienced a VATS right upper lobectomy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer after ALK-tyrosine kinase inhibitor administration.

Background The role of the molecular tumour board (MTB) is to recommend personalised therapy for patients with cancer beyond standard-of-care treatment. A comprehensive molecular analysis of the tumour in a molecular pathology laboratory is important for all targeted therapies approaches. Here we report the 1-year experience of the Instituto Alexander Fleming Molecular Tumour Board. Patients and methods The MTB of the Instituto Alexander Fleming was launched in December 2019 in a monthly meeting. In each interactive monthly session, five cases were presented and discussed by the members. These cases were referred by the treating oncologists. The MTB recommendations were sent to each physician individually, and to the rest of the meeting participants. This was discussed with the patients/families by the treating oncologist. The final decision to choose therapy was left to the treating physicians. Of the 32 patients presented at MTB, 28 (87.5%) had potentially actionable alterations and only 4 (12.5%) had no actionable mutation. Six (19%) patients received a local regulatory agency approved drug recommendation, nine (28%) patients received an off-label approval treatment recommendation and three (9%) patients did not receive the treatment due to access and reimbursement of the drug. Conclusion In most of the cases evaluated, the MTB was able to provide treatment recommendations based on targetable genetic alterations. Molecular-guided extended personalised patient care is effective for a small but clinically significant proportion of patients in challenging clinical situations. We believe that the implementation of a MTB is feasible in the Latin America (LATAM) region.

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