Development of Circulating and Tissue Biomarkers Predicting Immune Phenotype and Response to Immunotherapy in NSCLC

Approximately 20-50% of advanced NSCLC patients respond to immunotherapy and show prolonged survival. For patients that fail to respond or those who develop drug resistance there is an unmet clinical need for predictive biomarkers that can stratify patients into groups that will benefit from immunotherapy alone or in combination with targeted therapies. Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs) evaluation can distinguish three dominant immune phenotypes: immune-inflamed (Hot), immune-excluded, and immune-desert (Cold), which can correlate with response to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs).