Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1640595

This article is part of the Research TopicPredictive Biomarkers to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Lung CancerView all 7 articles

Prognostic Value of Patient-Reported Outcomes for Survival in Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Provisionally accepted
David  GandaraDavid Gandara1*Miranda  GogishviliMiranda Gogishvili2Ahmet  SezerAhmet Sezer3Tamta  MakharadzeTamta Makharadze4Mahmut  GümüşMahmut Gümüş5Cong  ZhuCong Zhu6Eric  YanEric Yan6,7Giuseppe  GulloGiuseppe Gullo6Petra  RietschelPetra Rietschel6Ruben  GW QuekRuben GW Quek6
  • 1University of California, Davis, Davis, United States
  • 2High Technology Medical Centre, University Clinic Ltd, Tbilisi, Georgia
  • 3Başkent University, Adana, Türkiye
  • 4LTD High Technology Hospital Med Center, Batumi, Georgia
  • 5Istanbul Medeniyet Universitesi, Istanbul, Türkiye
  • 6Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, Tarrytown, United States
  • 7Cyan Global Inc., San Diego, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: There is potential clinical utility in using patient-reported outcomes (PROs) to predict survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. We assessed the prognostic value of PROs for survival in two phase 3 cemiplimab studies in advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Methods: Data from EMPOWER-Lung 1 and EMPOWER-Lung 3 Part 2, two global, randomized phase 3 clinical trials, were used. Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and programmed cell death-ligand 1 expression ≥50% received cemiplimab monotherapy (n=283), and patients with no EGFR, ALK, or ROS1 genomic aberrations received cemiplimab plus chemotherapy (n=312). PROs were assessed using the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life and Quality of Life Lung Cancer 13 questionnaires. Association between baseline PROs and survival was analyzed, and the C-statistic was used to assess the prognostic value of PROs in comparison with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) scale. Results: Twenty-five PROs were evaluated, of which 15 were significantly associated (P<0.05) with overall survival and were better predictors than ECOG PS. Fourteen PROs were significantly associated (P<0.05) with progression-free survival; of these, 13 had better prognostic value than ECOG PS. Patient-reported dyspnea and physical functioning had the highest prognostic values for overall survival (c=0.635 and c=0.619, respectively) and progression-free survival (c=0.593 and c=0.583, respectively). Stratifying physical functioning into high, medium, and low categories showed that patients with high physical functioning at baseline had significantly better overall survival (high vs low; HR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.23-0.71; P=0.001), resulting in a 59% reduction in the risk of death. Similarly, patients in the high physical functioning category had significantly favorable progression-free survival (high vs low; HR, 0.44, 95% CI, 0.29-0.66; P<0.001) and a 56% reduction in the risk of death. Conclusion: Baseline PROs, including dyspnea and physical functioning, have significant prognostic value for survival for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Keywords: Non-small cell lung cancer, Immunotherapy, patient-reported outcomes, immunecheckpoint inhibitors, Cemiplimab, Quality of Life

Received: 03 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Gandara, Gogishvili, Sezer, Makharadze, Gümüş, Zhu, Yan, Gullo, Rietschel and Quek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: David Gandara, drgandara@health.ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.