Background: The prognostic significance of peripheral immune status in patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC) remains unclear.
Results: From July 2013 through December 2014, 37 patients were enrolled. Among patients with 25 subsets of immune cells, patients in the high group of granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (Gr-MDSCs) showed significantly shorter progression-free survival (PFS) than those in the low group (3.98 vs. 8.78 months; hazards ratio (HR), 2.61; p = 0.01). In multivariate analysis, the high Gr-MDSCs value was also associated with shorter PFS (HR, 4.60; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.79-11.8; p = 0.001). Although significant difference was not found in univariate analysis, the high Gr-MDSCs group was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) (HR, 2.89; 95% CI, 1.23-6.80; p = 0.015) in multivariate analysis.
Materials and Methods: In this explorative prospective study, peripheral blood samples were collected from AGC patients before initiating first-line cisplatin-based chemotherapy (S-1 + cisplatin or S-1 + cisplatin + docetaxel). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were analyzed for 25 immune subsets by multicolor flow cytometry. PFS and OS were compared between the patients divided into high and low (>= and < median, respectively) groups based on the median value for each immune cell subset.
Conclusions: The peripheral immune status of Gr-MDSCs appears to affect the prognosis in AGC. Further research is needed to confirm the clinical value of the level of circulating Gr-MDSCs as a prognostic and/or predictive marker in AGC.