Dr. Mary Jo Fidler on the Role of Oligoclonal T Cell Expansion in NSCLC

Video

Mary Jo Fidler, MD, associate professor, medical oncology, hematology, internal medicine, Rush University Medical Center, discusses how early and persistent oligoclonal T cell expansion correlates with durable response to anti-PD1 therapy in non-small cell lung cancer treatment (NSCLC).

Mary Jo Fidler, MD, associate professor, medical oncology, hematology, internal medicine, Rush University Medical Center, discusses how early and persistent oligoclonal T cell expansion correlates with durable response to anti-PD1 therapy in non-small cell lung cancer treatment (NSCLC).

There is a need for other ways to identify patients that will respond to PD-1 inhibitors beside PD-L1 testing. In one recent study, researchers found that both in the tumor cells and the circulating blood, there is an expansion of oligoclonal T cells in patients after they receive anti-PD1 therapy for NSCLC. These T cells were cloned or derived from one or a few cells.

These findings were significant, says Fidler, because in the patients that seem to derive benefit, researchers were able to detect these T cells, which presumably were released by adding the checkpoint inhibitor. However, patients that did not respond to the checkpoint inhibitors did not have the same uptake in these T cells, says Fidler.

Based on these findings, it is possible that oligoclonal T cells could become an alternative method for selecting which patients should continue on with checkpoint inhibitors, and which patients should receive other immunomodulators to try and increase their immune response.

Recent Videos
Bhagirathbhai R. Dholaria, MD, an associate professor of medicine in malignant hematology & stem cell transplantation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Reena Sharma, MD, an adult metabolic consultant at Salford Royal Hospital
Mark Hamilton, MD, PhD, a hematology-oncology and bone marrow transplant (BMT) cell therapy fellow at Stanford University
Barry J Byrne, MD, PhD, the chief medical advisor of MDA and a physician-scientist at the University of Florida
Barry J Byrne, MD, PhD, the chief medical advisor of MDA and a physician-scientist at the University of Florida
Sarah Larson, MD, the medical director of the Immune Effector Cell Therapy Program in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
David Porter, MD, the director of cell therapy and transplant at Penn Medicine
David Porter, MD, the director of cell therapy and transplant at Penn Medicine
Georg Schett, MD, vice president research and chair of internal medicine at the University of Erlangen – Nuremberg
Manali Kamdar, MD, the associate professor of medicine–hematology and clinical director of lymphoma services at the University of Colorado
© 2025 MJH Life Sciences

All rights reserved.