An Immune-Clinical Prognostic Index (ICPI) for Patients With De Novo Follicular Lymphoma Treated With R-CHOP/CHOP Chemotherapy

PURPOSE: Although the role of tumor-infiltrating T cells in follicular lymphoma (FL) has been reported previously, the prognostic value of peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets has not been systematically assessed. Thus, we aim to incorporate T-cell subsets with clinical features to develop a predictive model of clinical outcome. METHODS: We retrospectively screened a total of 1,008 patients, including 252 newly diagnosed de novo FL patients with available peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets who were randomized to different sets (177 in the training set and 75 in the internal validation set). A nomogram and a novel immune-clinical prognostic index (ICPI) were established according to multivariate Cox regression analysis for progression-free survival (PFS). The concordance index (C-index), Akaike’s information criterion (AIC), and likelihood ratio chi-square were employed to compare the ICPI’s discriminatory capability and homogeneity to that of FLIPI, FLIPI2, and PRIMA-PI. Additional external validation was performed using a dataset (n = 157) from other four centers. RESULTS: In the training set, multivariate analysis identified five independent prognostic factors (Stage III/IV disease, elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Hb <120g/L, CD4+ <30.7% and CD8+ >36.6%) for PFS. A novel ICPI was established according to the number of risk factors and stratify patients into 3 risk groups: high, intermediate, and low-risk with 4-5, 2-3, 0-1 risk factors respectively. The hazard ratios for patients in the high and intermediate-risk groups than those in the low-risk were 27.640 and 2.758. The ICPI could stratify patients into different risk groups both in the training set (P < 0.0001), internal validation set (P = 0.0039) and external validation set (P = 0.04). Moreover, in patients treated with RCHOP-like therapy, the ICPI was also predictive (P < 0.0001). In comparison to FLIPI, FLIPI2, and PRIMA-PI (C-index, 0.613-0.647), the ICPI offered adequate discrimination capability with C-index values of 0.679. Additionally, it exhibits good performance based on the lowest AIC and highest likelihood ratio chi-square score. CONCLUSIONS: The ICPI is a novel predictive model with improved prognostic performance for patients with de novo FL treated with R-CHOP/CHOP chemotherapy. It is capable to be used in routine practice and guides individualized precision therapy.