Lunit Presents 6 Research Results on AI-Driven Lung Cancer Treatment at American Society of Clinical Oncology

Presented at the American Association for Cancer Immunotherapy... Utilizing 'Lunit Scope'

Medical AI company Lunit announced on the 2nd that it will present six poster studies predicting the treatment effects of various cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer, using its AI biomarker 'Lunit Scope' at the '2023 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2023)' held in San Diego, USA, from the 1st to the 5th of this month.

Lunit's 'Lunit Scope IO'
Photo by Lunit

First, Lunit will present a study analyzing tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) distribution to predict the treatment effect of immunotherapy in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, the most common mutation in non-small cell lung cancer, who developed resistance after tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) targeted therapy.

The research team used Lunit Scope to evaluate the TIL distribution before and after TKI treatment in 76 EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer patients and classified them into three immune phenotypes?immune active, immune deficient, and immune excluded?based on the distribution levels.

As a result, the immune active group classified by Lunit Scope showed a higher overall response rate (ORR, 40.0% vs. 7.5%) and progression-free survival (PFS, 4.1 months vs. 1.4 months) to immunotherapy compared to the immune deficient group. This demonstrates the meaningfulness of immunotherapy as a subsequent treatment for patients who developed resistance to targeted therapy for EGFR mutations.

In the next study, Lunit Scope was used to analyze the correlation between triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and TIL distribution. The study found that among the six molecular subtypes (gene expression patterns) of TNBC, the 'immune modulator (IM) subtype' showed significantly higher TIL distribution compared to other types. This suggests the potential use of TIL distribution as an important indicator for deciding immunotherapy in TNBC.

Another study analyzed data from 22 tumor types and confirmed that the degree of abnormality in 'methylation,' which affects gene expression and disease occurrence in various cancers, is inversely correlated with TIL density. The research team calculated the degree of methylation abnormality using Lunit Scope's immune phenotype score and found that immune subtypes with high methylation abnormalities had low TIL infiltration, whereas decreased methylation levels corresponded to higher TIL infiltration. Lunit explained that this could serve as a basis for assessing cancer progression and immune response through the degree of methylation.

Lunit also presented the association between tumor fragmentation clusters and the immune environment of the tumor microenvironment, analyzing the distribution of 'cancer-associated fibroblasts (Fibroblast)' around tumors using AI. The tumor fragmentation index (TFI) ratios were 85.2%, 67.2%, 64.4%, 52.8%, and 39.9% in pancreatic, prostate, breast, cholangiocarcinoma, and lung cancers, respectively. The expression of inflammation-inducing genes IFNG, IL1A, and IL17A was lower in the high TFI patient group compared to the low TFI group. This indicates that the TFI ratio can predict patients' immune response and the metastatic potential of cancer tumors.

Seobum Seok, CEO of Lunit, said, "Following the presentation of three research abstracts at last year's SITC, this year we expanded our research to a wider range of cancer types, resulting in six studies being accepted and presented by the conference. Through participation in SITC, which has emerged as a leading society in the field of immuno-oncology, we will continue to demonstrate the value of Lunit Scope and actively pursue various collaborations with medical professionals worldwide."

Meanwhile, SITC, established in 1984, currently has over 4,600 scientists, researchers, and clinicians from 63 countries worldwide as members.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.