Predicting immune checkpoint inhibitor response in urothelial carcinoma: another step in personalised medicine?

Prediction of treatment response is a crucial issue in individualised treatment for cancer patients. In this context, Nassar and colleagues in the accompanying study published in the British Journal of Cancer analysed retrospectively a cohort of 62 metastatic urothelial cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors and of whom not only clinical but also genomic characteristics were available. Combining molecular and clinical factors in a multivariable analysis they identified lack of visceral metastases, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) <5, and high single nucleotide variant (SNV) count (≥10) as independent predictors of treatment response.