Clinical outcome following checkpoint therapy in renal cell carcinoma is associated with a burst of activated CD8 T cells in blood.

Purpose: Checkpoint therapy is now the cornerstone of treatment for patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with advanced disease, but biomarkers are lacking to predict which patients will benefit. This study proposes potential immunological biomarkers that could developed for predicting therapeutic response in patients with RCC.

Methods: Using flow cytometry, RNA sequencing, and T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing, we investigated changes in T cells in the peripheral blood of patients with advanced RCC after receiving immunotherapy.

Efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint blockade in self-identified Black patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: To the authors' knowledge, race-based differences in efficacy for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have not been studied to date due to the underrepresentation of patients of minority backgrounds in pivotal trials. In the current study, the authors examined real-world differences in outcome in a diverse patient population.

Methods: The authors retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcomes of patients with advanced NSCLC who were treated with single-agent immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) between 2013 and July 2018 at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.