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Clinical Studies

Systemic inflammatory prognostic scores in advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma

British Journal of Cancer volume 128, pages 1916–1921 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Systemic inflammatory scores may aid prognostication and patient selection for trials. We compared five scores in advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

Methods

Unresectable/metastatic PDAC patients enrolled in the Comprehensive Molecular Characterisation of Advanced Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma for Better Treatment Selection trial (NCT02750657) were included. Patients had pre-treatment biopsies for whole genome and RNA sequencing. CD8 immunohistochemistry was available in a subset. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, Prognostic Nutritional Index, Gustave Roussy Immune Score (GRIm-S), and Memorial Sloan Kettering Prognostic Score (MPS) were calculated. Overall survival (OS) was estimated using Kaplan–Meier methods. Associations between inflammatory scores, clinical/genomic characteristics, and OS were analysed.

Results

We analysed 263 patients. High-risk NLR, GRIm-S and MPS were poorly prognostic. The GRIm-S had the highest predictive ability: median OS 6.4 vs. 10 months for high risk vs. low-risk (P < 0.001); HR 2.26 (P < 0.001). ECOG ≥ 1, the basal-like subtype, and low-HRDetect were additional poor prognostic factors (P < 0.01). Inflammatory scores did not associate with RNA-based classifiers or homologous recombination repair deficiency genotypes. High-risk MPS (P = 0.04) and GRIm-S (P = 0.02) patients had lower median CD8 + tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes.

Conclusions

Inflammatory scores incorporating NLR have prognostic value in advanced PDAC. Understanding immunophenotypes of poor-risk patients and using these scores in trials will advance the field.

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Fig. 1: Oncoprint showing genomic features of cases enrolled on the COMPASS trial.
Fig. 2: Kaplan–Meier survival curves.

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Data availability

All RNA sequencing data have been deposited in the European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA) at EGAD00001009409.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted with the support of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (PanCuRx Translational Research Initiative) through funding provided by the Government of Ontario, the Wallace McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer supported by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Canada, the Terry Fox Research Institute, and the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute.

Funding

This study was funded by the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (PanCuRx Translational Research Initiative), the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Canada, a Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute grant (702316), and charitable donations from the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University (Alex U. Soyka) and the Lebovic Chair in Hepatobiliary/Pancreatic Surgical Oncology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Lucy X. Ma, Michael J. Allen, Anna Dodd, Stephanie Ramotar, Shawn Hutchinson, Faiyaz Notta, Steven Gallinger, Robert C. Grant, Rama Khokha, Nathan Chan, Barbara T. Grünwald, Jennifer J. Knox & Grainne M. O’Kane

  2. Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre; Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute, McGill University; Department of Surgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Yifan Wang & George Zogopoulos

  3. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Osvaldo Espin-Garcia

  4. Dalla Lana School of Public Health & Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Osvaldo Espin-Garcia

  5. Department of Biostatistics, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Osvaldo Espin-Garcia

  6. PanCuRx Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Gun Ho Jang, Amy Zhang, Julie M. Wilson, Faiyaz Notta, Steven Gallinger, Robert C. Grant, Jennifer J. Knox & Grainne M. O’Kane

  7. Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Mustapha Tehfe

  8. QEII Health Sciences Centre, Division of Medical Oncology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Ravi Ramjeesingh

  9. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    James Biagi

  10. Department of Pathology, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Sandra E. Fischer

  11. Hepatobiliary/Pancreatic Surgical Oncology Program, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Steven Gallinger

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  1. Lucy X. Ma
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Contributions

LXM: conceptualisation, data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). YW: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). OE-G: formal analysis and writing (review and editing). MJA: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). GHJ: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). AZ: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). AD: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). SR: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). SH: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). MT: investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). RR: investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). JB: investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). JW: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). FN: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). SEF: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). GZ: investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). SG: data curation, investigation, resources and funding acquisition and writing (original draft, review and editing). RCG: data curation, investigation and writing (original draft, review and editing). RK: data curation, investigation and writing (review and editing). NC: data curation, investigation and writing (review and editing). BTG: data curation, investigation and writing (review and editing). JJK: data curation, investigation, resources and funding acquisition and writing (original draft, review and editing). GMO’K: conceptualisation, data curation, investigation, resources and funding acquisition and writing (original draft, review and editing). The final manuscript was approved by all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Grainne M. O’Kane.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was approved by the University Health Network Research Ethics Board.

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Ma, L.X., Wang, Y., Espin-Garcia, O. et al. Systemic inflammatory prognostic scores in advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Br J Cancer 128, 1916–1921 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-023-02214-0

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