Affiliation:
1. Lung and Esophageal Cancer Clinic, Chonnam National University Hwasun Hospital
2. Chonnam National University Hospital
3. Chonnam National University Bitgoeul Hospital
4. Chonnam National University Medical School
5. Chonnam National University Medical School and Hwasun Hospital
Abstract
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) as potential biomarker for treatment-related ILD (TR-ILD) in lung cancer. We recruited patients with lung cancer in whom serum KL-6 was measured for differentiating between pneumonia and ILD (category 1), diagnosing and assessing the severity of suspicious TR-ILD (category 2), or evaluating baseline levels before cancer treatment (category 3). Among 1297 patients who underwent KL-6 testing, 422 had lung cancer, and TR-ILD was detected in 194 patients. In lung cancer patients, median KL-6 level was higher in patients with drug-induced ILD than in those without ILD or those with radiation pneumonitis, and it was correlated with the severity of TR-ILD. Elevated serum KL-6 (cutoff: 449.9 U/mL) was an independent risk factor of severe TR-ILD, and elevated serum KL-6 with normal serum procalcitonin was associated with severe TR-ILD rather than non-ILD respiratory disease or non-severe TR-ILD. Patients with high serum KL-6 levels had worse overall survival compared with those with low serum KL-6 levels, regardless of patients’ categories. Therefore, serum KL-6 may be surrogate marker for predicting the occurrence and assessing the severity of TR-ILD at the time of suspicious ILD events and before lung cancer treatment.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC