Baseline Pan-Immune-Inflammation Value is Associated with Clinical Outcome in Patients with Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Cancer Treated with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Objectives: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have played an important role in the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer (R/M HNC). However, we lack prognostic and predictive markers of ICIs in R/M HNC. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic and predictive markers of the anticancer effect of ICIs.
Methods: Fifty-seven patients with R/M HNC treated with ICIs were included in this retrospective study. The baseline pan-immune-inflammation value (PIV) was calculated as follows: (neutrophil count × platelet count × monocyte count)/lymphocyte count, with a cut off value of 940.27.
Results: With a median follow-up of 12 months, the 1-year overall survival (OS) rates were significantly lower in the high PIV group compared with those in the low PIV group (OS: 40.0% vs. 73.1%, p=0.03). In the multivariate analyses, we observed that a high PIV was a significantly unfavorable predictor of OS (hazard ratio (HR) 2.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09–5.81, p=0.003).
Conclusion: For R/M HNC, PIV is an independent survival predictor for the efficacy of ICIs. Novel intensified treatments are needed for the subgroup of patients with R/M HNC and a high PIV.
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