The measurement of immune-inflammation index, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, and platelet-lymphocyte ratio in the blood have been found to be robust predictors of outcome of nivolumab therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Immune-inflammation index was found to be a more powerful predictor than the other inflammatory indexes, and a low immune-inflammation index was found to be associated with high one-year overall survival.

This research has been verified and was reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, in Madrid, Spain, this week.

Future research will assess the capacity of changes in these biomarkers during nivolumab treatment to further improve the clinical management of RCC patients. When further validated, these useful and cheap biomarkers could be applied easily in clinical practice.

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