Abstract 359P
Background
Immunotherapy has brought revolutionary changes to the treatment of advanced NSCLC, but drug resistance still occurs inevitably. B7H3 is a cell surface immunomodulatory glycoprotein overexpressed in NSCLC. This study aims to explore the expression of B7H3 in advanced NSCLC, its predictive value for the prognosis of immunotherapy, and analyze its relationship with immune cells in the tumor microenvironment.
Methods
This single - center retrospective clinical study was conducted at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital. We evaluated the prognostic role of B7H3 expression in a cohort of advanced NSCLC patients treated with first - line immune checkpoint inhibitors. B7H3 expression grade of 0–1 were defined as low expression, and grade of 2–3 were defined as moderate - high expression. Expression of B7H3 and its correlation with other immune cell biomarkers, including CD3, CD8, CD68, and Foxp3, were analyzed by immunohistochemistry.
Results
This study included a total of 66 pre-treatment pathological tissue samples from advanced NSCLC patients who received first - line immunotherapy, consisting of 38 cases of lung squamous cell carcinoma and 28 cases of lung adenocarcinoma. B7H3 was expressed in 71.2% of advanced NSCLC and was positively correlated with the infiltration of CD8+ T cells (p < 0.05), but there was no significant correlation with the infiltration of CD3, CD68 and Foxp3. Compared with lung adenocarcinoma, B7H3 had a higher proportion of moderate - high expression in lung squamous cell carcinoma. By analyzing the prognosis of patients, we found that relative to those with B7H3 grade 0–1, patients with B7H3 grade 2–3 had a shorter median progression-free survival(PFS)(p=0.023; HR=0.44, [95% CI, 0.20–0.98]), with median PFS of 29.6 months and 20.3 months, respectively.
Conclusions
Moderate - high expression of B7H3 in advanced NSCLC is associated with poor prognosis in patients, and it may serve as a potential therapeutic target.
Legal entity responsible for the study
Shanghai pulmonary hospital.
Funding
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82373319).
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.