Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Jun 18;22(12):6536.
doi: 10.3390/ijms22126536.

TMB in NSCLC: A Broken Dream?

Sara Bravaccini  1 , Giuseppe Bronte  1 , Paola Ulivi  1
Affiliations
Review

TMB in NSCLC: A Broken Dream?

Sara Bravaccini et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have changed the treatment paradigm of a variety of cancers, including non-small-cell lung cancer, not all patients respond to immunotherapy in the same way. Predictive biomarkers for patient selection are thus needed. Tumor mutation burden (TMB), defined as the total number of somatic/acquired mutations per coding area of a tumor genome (Mut/Mb), has emerged as a potential predictive biomarker of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. We found that the limited use of TMB in clinical practice is due to the difficulty in its detection and compounded by several different biological, methodological and economic issues. The incorporation of both TMB and PD-L1 expression or other biomarkers into multivariable predictive models could result in greater predictive power.

Keywords: NSCLC; TMB; immune checkpoint inhibitors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Non-small-cell lung cancer stained by immunohistochemistry with SP263 Antibody: (A) PD-L1-positive tumor cells (40× magnification); (B) PD-L1-positive tumor cells and immune cells (20× magnification).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Früh M., Rolland E., Pignon J.P., Seymour L., Ding K., Tribodet H., Winton T., Le Chevalier T., Scagliotti G.V., Douillard J.Y., et al. Pooled Analysis of the Effect of Age on Adjuvant Cisplatin-Based Chemotherapy for Completely Resected Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer. J. Clin. Oncol. 2008;26:3573–3581. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2008.16.2727. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Liu X., Conner H., Kobayashi T., Kim H., Wen F., Abe S., Fang Q., Wang X., Hashimoto M., Bitterman P., et al. Cigarette smoke extract induces DNA damage but not apoptosis in human bronchial epithelial cells. Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol. 2005;33:121–129. doi: 10.1165/rcmb.2003-0341OC. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Field R.W., Withers B.L. Occupational and Environmental Causes of Lung Cancer. Clin. Chest. Med. 2012;33:681–703. doi: 10.1016/j.ccm.2012.07.001. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Travis W.D., Brambilla E., Nicholson A.G., Yatabe Y., Austin J.H.M., Beasley M.B., Chirieac L.R., Dacic S., Duhig E., Flieder D.B., et al. WHO Panel. The 2015 World Health Organization Classification of Lung Tumors: Impact of Genetic, Clinical and Radiologic Advances since the 2004 Classification. J. Thorac. Oncol. 2015;10:1243–1260. doi: 10.1097/JTO.0000000000000630. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zappa C., Mousa S.A. Non-small cell lung cancer: Current treatment and future advances. Transl. Lung Cancer Res. 2016;5:288–300. doi: 10.21037/tlcr.2016.06.07. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances