Abstract 903P
Background
Resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) treatment has been shown in most patients, and some even present hyper-progression disease (HPD). Some researchers previously reported that almost one third of patients with non-nasopharyngeal head and neck cancer (HNC) suffered HPD, but the mechanism is still unclear. Herein, we evaluated some genetic alterations in Chinese HNC patients, which were reported to be associated with HPD in other solid tumors, and analyzed the association between these gene alteration and tumor microenvironment (TME) level or PD-L1 expression level.
Methods
This study queried the data from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues of 346 HNC patients which underwent a targeted next-generation sequencing assay performed by 3DMed Clinical Laboratory Inc., a College of American Pathologists (CAP) and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified laboratory, between January, 2019 and June, 2021 in China.
Results
Among these patients, 54.3% (188/346) were carry at least one gene alteration associated with HPD, including amplification of gene MDM2/4, CCND1, FGF3/4/19, and gene mutation in CDKN2A/2B, DNMT3CA, etc. The ratio of these gene mutation in HNSCC were 1.73% MDM2/4, 22.83% CCND1, 21.97% FGF3/4/19, 28.32% CDKN2A/2B and 4.34% DNMT3CA. In addition, 249 and 233 patients were available for analysis of TMB level and PD-L1 expression level, respectively. However, no significant difference in both tumor mutational burden (TMB) and PD-L1 expression levels were found among patients with or without HPD-associated gene alteration, and patients carry one of these gene alterations (p>0.05).
Conclusions
There are a high proportion of HPD-associated gene alterations in patients with HNC, however, the mechanism of HPD presented in these patients was not related to lower TMB level or PD-L1 expression level.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.