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Multicenter Study
. 2021 Mar;9(3):e002277.
doi: 10.1136/jitc-2020-002277.

Systemic pro-inflammatory response identifies patients with cancer with adverse outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection: the OnCovid Inflammatory Score

Gino M Dettorre  1 Saoirse Dolly  2 Angela Loizidou  3 John Chester  4   5 Amanda Jackson  6 Uma Mukherjee  7 Alberto Zambelli  8 Juan Aguilar-Company  9   10 Mark Bower  11 Christopher C T Sng  12 Ramon Salazar  13 Alexia Bertuzzi  14 Joan Brunet  15 Ricard Mesia  16 Ailsa Sita-Lumsden  2 Elia Seguí  17 Federica Biello  18 Daniele Generali  19   20 Salvatore Grisanti  21 Pavetha Seeva  2 Gianpiero Rizzo  22 Michela Libertini  23 Antonio Maconi  24 Charlotte Moss  25 Beth Russell  25 Nadia Harbeck  26 Bruno Vincenzi  27 Rossella Bertulli  28 Diego Ottaviani  12 Raquel Liñan  15 Andrea Marrari  14 M Carmen Carmona-García  15 Neha Chopra  12 Carlo Alberto Tondini  8 Oriol Mirallas  9 Valeria Tovazzi  21 Vittoria Fotia  8 Claudia Andrea Cruz  17 Nadia Saoudi-Gonzalez  9 Eudald Felip  16 Ariadna Roqué  15 Alvin J X Lee  12 Tom Newsom-Davis  11 David García-Illescas  9 Roxana Reyes  17 Yien Ning Sophia Wong  12 Daniela Ferrante  29 Lorenza Scotti  29 Javier Marco-Hernández  30 Isabel Ruiz-Camps  10 Andrea Patriarca  31 Lorenza Rimassa  32 Lorenzo Chiudinelli  8 Michela Franchi  8 Armando Santoro  32 Aleix Prat  33 Alessandra Gennari  18 Mieke Van Hemelrijck  2   25 Josep Tabernero  34 Nikolaos Diamantis  7 David J Pinato  35   18 OnCovid study group
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Systemic pro-inflammatory response identifies patients with cancer with adverse outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection: the OnCovid Inflammatory Score

Gino M Dettorre et al. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 Mar.

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: Patients with cancer are particularly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The systemic inflammatory response is a pathogenic mechanism shared by cancer progression and COVID-19. We investigated systemic inflammation as a driver of severity and mortality from COVID-19, evaluating the prognostic role of commonly used inflammatory indices in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients with cancer accrued to the OnCovid study.

Methods: In a multicenter cohort of SARS-CoV-2-infected patients with cancer in Europe, we evaluated dynamic changes in neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (NLR); platelet:lymphocyte ratio (PLR); Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), renamed the OnCovid Inflammatory Score (OIS); modified Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS); and Prognostic Index (PI) in relation to oncological and COVID-19 infection features, testing their prognostic potential in independent training (n=529) and validation (n=542) sets.

Results: We evaluated 1071 eligible patients, of which 625 (58.3%) were men, and 420 were patients with malignancy in advanced stage (39.2%), most commonly genitourinary (n=216, 20.2%). 844 (78.8%) had ≥1 comorbidity and 754 (70.4%) had ≥1 COVID-19 complication. NLR, OIS, and mGPS worsened at COVID-19 diagnosis compared with pre-COVID-19 measurement (p<0.01), recovering in survivors to pre-COVID-19 levels. Patients in poorer risk categories for each index except the PLR exhibited higher mortality rates (p<0.001) and shorter median overall survival in the training and validation sets (p<0.01). Multivariable analyses revealed the OIS to be most independently predictive of survival (validation set HR 2.48, 95% CI 1.47 to 4.20, p=0.001; adjusted concordance index score 0.611).

Conclusions: Systemic inflammation is a validated prognostic domain in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients with cancer and can be used as a bedside predictor of adverse outcome. Lymphocytopenia and hypoalbuminemia as computed by the OIS are independently predictive of severe COVID-19, supporting their use for risk stratification. Reversal of the COVID-19-induced proinflammatory state is a putative therapeutic strategy in patients with cancer.

Keywords: COVID-19; inflammation; inflammation mediators.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: DJP received lecture fees from ViiV Healthcare and Bayer Healthcare and travel expenses from BMS and Bayer Healthcare; consulting fees for Mina Therapeutics, EISAI, Roche, and Astra Zeneca; research funding (to institution) from MSD and BMS. AP has declared personal honoraria from Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, MSD Oncology, Eli Lilly, and Daiichi Sankyo; travel, accommodations, and expenses paid by Daiichi Sankyo; research funding from Roche and Novartis; and consulting/advisory role for NanoString Technologies, Amgen, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. TND has declared consulting/advisory role for Amgen, Bayer, AstraZeneca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, and Takeda; speakers fees from AstraZeneca, MSD, Roche, Takeda; and travel, accommodations and expenses paid by AstraZenca, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, MSD, Otsuka, Roche, and Takeda. JB has declared consulting/advisory role for MSD and Astra Zeneca. PPS has declared consulting/advisory role for Sanofi and Abbvie. AP has declared consulting/advisory role for Takeda and Sanofi. MP has declared consulting/advisory role for Gilead and Bayer. AG has declared consulting/advisory role for Roche, MSD, Eli Lilly, Pierre Fabre, EISAI, and Daichii Sankyo; speakers bureau for Eisai, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Roche, Teva, Gentili, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Celgene, and Daichii Sankyo; research funds: EISAI, Eli Lilly, and Roche. LR reports receiving consulting fees from Amgen, ArQule, AstraZeneca, Basilea, Bayer, Celgene, Eisai, Exelixis, Hengrui, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, MSD, Nerviano Medical Sciences, Roche, and Sanofi; lectures fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Eisai, Gilead, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, Roche, and Sanofi; travel fees from Ipsen; and institutional research funding from Agios, ARMO BioSciences, AstraZeneca, BeiGene, Eisai, Exelixis, Fibrogen, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, MSD, and Roche. All remaining authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Patient disposition. mGPS, modified Glasgow Prognostic Score; NLR, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio; OIS, OnCovid Inflammatory Score; PI, Prognostic Index; PLR, platelet:lymphocyte ratio.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between inflammatory markers and COVID-19 outcomes and marker values at timepoints. (A) Median inflammatory index values or distributions at COVID-19 diagnosis in living versus deceased patients for the NLR (n=661 alive, n=360 dead; p§amp;lt;0.0001), PLR (n=628 alive, 338 dead; p§amp;lt;0.05), OIS (n=413 alive, n=230 dead; p§amp;lt;0.0001), mGPS (n=430 alive, n=229 dead; p§amp;lt;0.0001), and PI (n=525 alive, n=295 dead; p§amp;lt;0.0001). (B) Median values and distributions across timepoints for the NLR (n=55), PLR (n=50), OIS (n=23), mGPS (n=143 pre-COVID-19, n=672 at diagnosis, n=32 post-COVID-19), and PI (n=163 pre-COVID-19, n=828 at diagnosis, n=36 post-COVID-19). *P§amp;lt;0.05, **P§amp;lt;0.01, ***P§amp;lt;0.001, ****P§amp;lt;0.0001. Error bars represent 95% CIs from the median. mGPS, modified Glasgow Prognostic Score; NLR, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio; ns, not significant; OIS, OnCovid Inflammatory Score; PI, Prognostic Index; PLR, platelet:lymphocyte ratio.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relationship between inflammatory markers and unadjusted mortality. Inflammatory marker values at COVID-19 diagnosis divided into good and poor risk groups plotted against unadjusted mortality rates for the (A) training set and (B) validation set. Error bars represent lower and upper limits. ***P<0.001, ****P<0.0001. mGPS, modified Glasgow Prognostic Score; NLR, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio; ns, not significant; OIS, OnCovid Inflammatory Score; PI, Prognostic Index; PLR, platelet:lymphocyte ratio.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Univariable survival analysis of inflammatory markers (training set). Kaplan-Meier estimates for univariable survival analysis are shown for the NLR (n=447, p§amp;lt;0.001), OIS (n=273, p§amp;lt;0.0001), mGPS (n=278, p§amp;lt;0.0001), and PI (n=361, p§amp;lt;0.0001) at COVID-19 diagnosis with significance calculated following log-rank methodology. ***P§amp;lt;0.001, ****P§amp;lt;0.0001. mGPS, modified Glasgow Prognostic Score; NLR, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio; OIS, OnCovid Inflammatory Score; PI, Prognostic Index.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Univariable survival analysis of inflammatory markers (validation set). Kaplan-Meier estimates for univariable survival analysis are shown for the NLR (n=452, p§amp;lt;0.0001), OIS (n=272, p§amp;lt;0.0001), mGPS (n=291, p§amp;lt;0.001), and PI (n=384, p§amp;lt;0.01) at COVID-19 diagnosis with significance calculated following log-rank methodology. **P§amp;lt;0.01, ***P§amp;lt;0.001, ****P§amp;lt;0.0001. mGPS, modified Glasgow Prognostic Score; NLR, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio; OIS, OnCovid Inflammatory Score; PI, Prognostic Index.

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