ArticleBMC cancer2024
Alpha-fetoprotein predicts the treatment efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors for gastric cancer patients.
Article in BMC cancer, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- PD-1 antibody camrelizumab plus apatinib and SOX as first-line treatment in patients with AFP-producing gastric or gastro-esophageal junction adenocarcinoma (CAP 06): a multi-center, single-arm, phase 2 trial.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Trial
- Unlocking the potential: current landscape and future directions of immunotherapy in gastric cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Conversion Surgery for Alpha-Fetoprotein-Producing Esophagogastric Junction Cancer with Multiple Liver Metastases and Portal Vein Tumor Thrombus after Nivolumab Combination Chemotherapy: A Case Report and Literature Review.Surgical case reports · 2026Article
- Hyponatremia predicts immunotherapy resistance in biliary tract cancer.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- T lymphocyte-based immune response and therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma: focus on TILs and CAR-T cells.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Review
- Alpha fetoprotein (AFP)-producing gastric cancer: clinicopathological features and treatment strategies.Cell & bioscience · 2025Review
- Association between emotional distress and the efficacy of advanced gastric cancer patients undergoing treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors: a cohort study and propensity score matching study.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- Comparison of Alpha-fetoprotein-positive and AFP-negative patients with advanced gastroesophageal junction or gastric cancer receiving immunotherapy: an analysis stratified by HER2 status.American journal of cancer research · 2025Article
- Predictive biomarkers in the era of immunotherapy for gastric cancer: current achievements and future perspectives.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Article
- Beyond the WHO 2020 Classification of Female Genital Tumors: Types of Endometrial Cancer: A Pathological and Molecular Focus on Challenging Rare Variants.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Alpha-fetoprotein: A Multifaceted Player in Cancer Biology.Euroasian journal of hepato-gastroenterologyReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundImmune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are commonly used in conjunction with chemotherapy to improve treatment outcomes for patients with gastric cancer. Since AFP could influence immunity by both inhibiting natural killer (NK) cells and regulating negatively the function of dendritic cells, we evaluated the influence of baseline serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels on the curative effect of ICIs in advanced gastric cancer (AGC) patients.
methodsA retrospective analysis was conducted on 158 AGC patients who underwent ICI treatment. The patients were divided into high and low groups based on the AFP threshold of 20 ng/ml. The efficacy of ICI treatment was assessed using objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS).
resultsThe higher levels of baseline AFP were found to be associated with a decrease in the effectiveness of ICIs, as evidenced by a DCR of 50.0% in the group with high AFP levels compared to 87.7% in the group with low AFP levels (P < 0.001). Further analysis using Kaplan-Meier survival techniques indicated that a high AFP level was linked to shorter progression-free survival (PFS) (P < 0.001) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.001) in AGC individuals receiving ICIs. After propensity score matching, a log rank test revealed that the high AFP group had a decrease in median PFS (P = 0.011) and median OS (P = 0.036) compared to the low AFP group. The high AFP levels also showed its association with shorter PFS and OS in the subgroup analysis of ICI plus chemotherapy patients.
conclusionsBaseline AFP levels may predict immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment efficacy in AGC patients.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.