Systemic immune modulation by stereotactic radiotherapy in early-stage lung cancer

Eleni Gkika; Elke Firat; Sonja Adebahr; Erika Graf; Ilinca Popp; Gianluca Radicioni; Simon S Lo; Ursula Nestle; Nils H Nicolay; Gabriele Niedermann; Dan G Duda; Anca-L Grosu

doi:10.1038/s41698-023-00358-z

Systemic immune modulation by stereotactic radiotherapy in early-stage lung cancer

NPJ Precis Oncol. 2023 Mar 2;7(1):24. doi: 10.1038/s41698-023-00358-z.

Authors

Eleni Gkika^#^{1

2}, Elke Firat^#^{1

2}, Sonja Adebahr^{1

2}, Erika Graf³, Ilinca Popp^{1

2}, Gianluca Radicioni^{1

2}, Simon S Lo⁴, Ursula Nestle^{1

5}, Nils H Nicolay^{1

2}, Gabriele Niedermann^{1

2}, Dan G Duda⁶, Anca-L Grosu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiation Oncology, Medical Center-University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, Freiburg, Germany.
² German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Freiburg, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
³ Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics, Medical Center-University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, Freiburg, Germany.
⁴ Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁵ Department of Radiation Oncology, Kliniken Maria Hilf, Monchengladbach, Germany.
⁶ E. L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. duda@steele.mgh.harvard.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

We performed a prospective study of circulating immune cell changes after stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in 50 early-stage NSCLC patients. We found no significant increase in CD8⁺ cytotoxic T lymphocytes at first follow-up (the primary endpoint) but detected a significant increase in expanding Ki-67⁺CD8⁺ and Ki-67⁺CD4⁺ T-cell fractions in patients treated with 10 Gy or less per fraction. SBRT can induce significant expansion in circulating effector T-cells immediately post-treatment.