Published in

Future Medicine, Immunotherapy, 5(15), p. 343-351, 2023

DOI: 10.2217/imt-2022-0222

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Imaging-calculated splenic volume is associated with response in melanoma patients treated with immunotherapy

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Background: Predicting the roughly 50% of melanoma patients that will respond to immunotherapy is challenging. We tested if splenic volume could be a predictive biomarker. Methods: Splenic volume was measured by a semiautomated commercial software tool in pre- and post-treatment PET/CT, CT or MRI in 50 melanoma patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Results: Subjects with smaller spleens had better progression-free survival (median not achieved after 30.6 months of follow-up vs median 11.2 months; p = 0.0213) than their counterparts. A cut-off of <244 cm3 yielded a sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 54% to identify responders. Conclusion: Measuring splenic volume on imaging scans is feasible. Smaller pretreatment spleen volume is associated with better responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors.