Prognostic effect of cachexia in patients with non-small cell lung cancer receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors

The presence of cachexia in cancer patients negatively affects the quality of life and survival. However, the impact of cachexia on immunotherapy, such as PD-1/L1 inhibitors, is not fully understood. Therefore, we examined whether cancer cachexia affects the prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.

We retrospectively screened patients with pathologically confirmed advanced or recurrent NSCLC who were treated with PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy at Kurume University Hospital. We defined cancer cachexia as weight loss of at least 5% during the past 6 months or any degree of weight loss more than 2% and BMI <20.

Among 182 patients, 74 had cancer cachexia. The presence of cachexia was significantly associated with females, poor performance status (PS), never-smokers, and driver mutations. Multivariate analysis revealed that poor PS and being a smoker were associated with the presence of cachexia. Patients with cancer cachexia had significantly shorter progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). In the multivariate analysis, PS and sex were significantly correlated with PFS, whereas PS and cachexia were significantly correlated with OS. Subanalysis revealed that patients in the PS0/without cachexia group had longer PFS and OS than those in the cachexia or PS1-3 group.

In NSCLC patients, cachexia was associated with a worse prognosis, irrespective of tumor PD-L1 expression, indicating that cachexia is a predictive factor for NSCLC patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.