PREDICTION OF PROGNOSIS OF ADVANCED NSCLC PATIENTS AFTER EGFR-TKIS THERAPY BY THE LEVEL OF IL-6 IN PLEURA

Wen Tian^{1, #}, Si Sun^{2, #}, Yu Wu^{3, *}

¹Department of Internal Medicine-Oncology, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Hebei Cangzhou, 061000, China - ²Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Xuzhou Central HospitaL, 221000, China - ³Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The People's Hospital of Dazu District, Chongqing, Chongqing, 402360, China

Objective: To evaluate the role of IL-6 level in pleura in indicating the prognosis of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who accepted the EGFR-TKIs therapy. 

Methods: In this study, we analyzed the clinical data of 95 advanced NSCLC patients who accepted the EGFR-TKIs therapy to evaluate the relationship between pleura IL-6 and clinical outcome, while the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional risk model were also applied to assess the progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients. 

Results: In comparison with the patients with IL-6 at the normal level in pleura, those with increased IL-6 in pleura would have shorter progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) (99 d vs. 123.5 d, P=0.011; 385 d vs. 607 d, P=0.001). Regardless of the mutation of EGFR, any increase in the level of IL-6 would shorten the PFS of patients.

Conclusion: IL-6 level may be prognostic factor of NSCLC patients who accept the EGFR-TKIs therapy.