Early Changes of Serum Interleukin 14 Levels Predicts the Response to Anti-PD-1 Therapy in Cancer

BACKGROUND: Programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) blockade has been shown to confer clinical benefit in cancer patients. Here, we assessed the level of serum interleukin 14 alpha (IL14 alpha) in patients receiving anti-PD-1 treatment. METHODS: This prospective study recruited 30 patients with advanced solid cancer who received pembrolizumab treatment in Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital between April 2016 and June 2018. The western blot analysis was used to assess the expression level of serum IL14 alpha in patients at baseline and after 2 cycles of treatment. Interleukin 14 alpha was performed using the unpaired 2-tailed Student test. The progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by the log-rank test. RESULTS: The early change of IL14 alpha after 2 cycles of anti-PD-1 therapy was calculated as delta IL14 alpha % change =(IL14 alpha level after 2 cycles-IL14 alpha level before treatment)/IL14 alpha level before treatment x 100%. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was analyzed to get a cutoff point of delta IL14 alpha % change as 2.46% (sensitivity = 85.71%, specificity = 62.5%; area under the ROC curve [AUC] = 0.7277, P= .034). Using this cutoff to subgroup the patients, an improved objective response rate was observed in patients with a delta IL14 alpha change higher than 2.46% (P = .0072). A delta IL14 alpha change over 2.46% was associated with a superior PFS (P= .0039). CONCLUSIONS: Early changes of serum IL14 alpha levels may be a promising biomarker to predict outcomes in patients with solid cancer following anti-PD-1 treatment.