Post-treatment serum interleukin-6 is independently associated with disease progression in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and coexisting COPD: a multicenter real-world cohort study

Vollständiger Abstract

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An observational multicenter cohort study involving 120 patients treated with chemotherapy alone or in combination with pembrolizumab or atezolizumab was conducted. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were measured after six cycles, and response of tumor was estimated with the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted. IL-6 levels were significantly reduced in the chemo-immunotherapy groups compared with the chemotherapy group ( p < 0.001). Patients with an objective response had lower IL-6 levels than non-responders ( p < 0.001). Post-treatment IL-6 and the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were tested, and both were significant in univariate analysis. However, only post-treatment IL-6 remained independently associated with progressive disease in multivariable analysis. ROC analysis revealed exceptional discriminative performance, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.961, 91.6% sensitivity, and 96.0% specificity. Therefore, post-treatment IL-6 was independently associated with disease progression and may demonstrate a promising biomarker for risk stratification in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).