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Emerging Biomarkers in Immune Oncology to Guide Lung Cancer Management

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Abstract

Over the last decade, the use of targeted therapies and immune therapies led to drastic changes in the management lung cancer and translated to improved survival outcomes. This growing arsenal of therapies available for the management of non-small cell lung cancer added more complexity to treatment decisions. The genomic profiling of tumors and the molecular characterization of the tumor microenvironment gradually became essential steps in exploring and identifying markers that can enhance patient selection to facilitate treatment personalization and narrow down therapy options. The advent of innovative diagnostic platforms, such as next-generation sequencing and plasma genotyping (also known as liquid biopsies), has aided in this quest. Currently, programmed cell death ligand 1 expression remains the most recognized and fully validated predictive biomarker of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Other markers such as tumor mutational burden, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, driver mutations, and other molecular elements of the tumor microenvironment bear the potential to be predictive tools; however, the majority are still investigational. In this review, we describe the advances noted thus far on currently validated as well as novel emerging biomarkers that have the potential to guide the use of immunotherapy agents in the management of non-small cell lung cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

    Houssein Safa

  2. Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Henry Ford Cancer Institute/Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, USA

    Fawzi Abu Rous & Shirish Gadgeel

  3. Department of Hematology-Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple University Health System, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Neel Belani & Hossein Borghaei

  4. Department of Oncology, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1695 Eastchester Road, Room 258, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA

    Balazs Halmos

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  1. Houssein Safa
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  5. Shirish Gadgeel
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Correspondence to Balazs Halmos.

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Houssein Safa, Fawzi Abu Rous, Neel Belani, Hossein Borghaei, Shirish Gadgeel, and Balazs Halmos have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

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Safa, H., Abu Rous, F., Belani, N. et al. Emerging Biomarkers in Immune Oncology to Guide Lung Cancer Management. Targ Oncol 18, 25–49 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11523-022-00937-3

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