Nomogram for predicting survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with PD-1 inhibitors: incorporating pre-treatment and post-treatment clinical parameters

Background Immunotherapy has transformed cancer treatment patterns for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC) in recent years. Therefore, the identification of predictive biomarkers has important clinical implications. Methods We collected medical records from 117 aHCC patients treated with anti-PD-1 antibody. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression were used to evaluate the association between peripheral blood biomarkers and overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Finally, the prognostic nomogram was constructed. Results The mPFS and mOS were 7.0 months and 18.7 months, respectively. According to Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression analysis, we regarded the treatment regimen ( p = 0.020), hemoglobin (Hb) at 6-week ( p = 0.042), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) at 6-week ( p < 0.001), system immune inflammation index (SII) at 6-week ( p = 0.125) as predictors of PFS, and alpha fetoprotein (AFP) ( p = 0.035), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) ( p = 0.012), Hb at 6-week ( p = 0.010) and NLR at 6-week ( p = 0.020) as predictors of OS. Furthermore, the results suggest that the OS and PFS nomogram model were in agreement with actual observations. Conclusion Biomarkers in peripheral blood can predict the prognosis of patients with aHCC treated with anti-PD-1 antibody. The development of nomogram models can help us to screen potential patients who can benefit from immunotherapy.