News Releases & Research Results High-precision biomarker predictive of clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors): precision medicine in immunotherapy

The results of the collaborative research and development (R&D) project conducted by Chief Hiroyoshi Nishikawa of the Division of Cancer Immunology, Research Institute/Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC), National Cancer Center; Chief Hiroyuki Mano of the Division of Cellular Signaling, National Cancer Center Research Institute; Deputy Director Toshihiko Doi of the National Cancer Center Hospital East; Professor Shigeyuki Matsui of the Department of Biostatics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine; Hitachi, Ltd.; and others.

• The research group successfully identified a high-precision biomarker predictive of the clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors [programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/PD ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors].
• A method to measure/detect tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, which has been described as technically difficult, was developed in collaboration with companies and enabled the measurement of these cells as a biomarker.
• The results of this R&D project should facilitate the development of precision medicine in cancer immunotherapy.

This program was conducted with support from the Project for Cancer Research and Therapeutic Evolution (P-CREATE) by AMED.

The results of this R&D project were published online in Nature Immunology, an American scientific journal, on September 1.

Kumagai S., et al. The PD-1 expression balance between effector and regulatory T cells predicts the clinical efficacy of PD-1 blockade therapies Nature Immunology
DOI：10.1038/s41590-020-0769-3