ArticleJournal for immunotherapy of cancer2022
Increase in serum choline levels predicts for improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced cancers receiving pembrolizumab.
Article in Journal for immunotherapy of cancer, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 11 papers.
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The trial behind it
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.
Investigator-initiated Phase II Study of Pembrolizumab Immunological Response Evaluation
Liquid Biopsy Evaluation and Repository Development at Princess Margaret
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Role of the neurotransmitter-receptor pathway in T-cell tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy.Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica · 2026Review
- Metabolic Reprogramming in Retinoblastoma Patients: Treatment Naïve Active Retinoblastoma Versus Regressed Tumors Post-Treatment.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2025Article
- The role of acetylcholine and its receptors in tumor immune regulation: mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets.Molecular cancer · 2025Review
- Neurotransmitters: an emerging target for therapeutic resistance to tumor immune checkpoint inhibitors.Molecular cancer · 2025Review
- Cholinergic T cells revitalize the tumor immune microenvironment: TIME to ChAT.Nature immunology · 2025Review
- Choline in immunity: a key regulator of immune cell activation and function.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Evaluating for Correlations between Specific Metabolites in Patients Receiving First-Line or Second-Line Immunotherapy for Metastatic or Recurrent NSCLC: An Exploratory Study Based on Two Cohorts.Molecular cancer therapeutics · 2024Article
- T cells at the interface of neuroimmune communication.The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology · 2024Review
- Periampullary cancer and neurological interactions: current understanding and future research directions.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Review
- Beggars banquet: Metabolism in the tumor immune microenvironment and cancer therapy.Cell metabolism · 2023Review
- Acetylcholine-producing CD4 T cells regulate vasculature in humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
22 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRecent studies have demonstrated that T cells can induce vasodilation in a choline-acetyltransferase dependent manner, leading to an increase in T cell migration to infected tissues in response to viral infection, but its role in cancer is unclear. Choline acetyltransferase catalyzes the production of acetylcholine from choline and acetyl-CoA, however, acetylcholine is challenging to quantify due to its extremely short half-life while choline is stable. This study aims to correlate serum choline levels in patients with advanced solid tumors receiving pembrolizumab with treatment outcomes.
methodsBlood samples were collected at baseline and at week 7 (pre-cycle 3) in patients treated with pembrolizumab in the INvestigator-initiated Phase 2 Study of Pembrolizumab Immunological Response Evaluation phase II trial (NCT02644369). Samples were analyzed for choline and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). Multivariable Cox models were used to assess the association between choline and overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) when including ΔctDNA
resultsA total of 106 pts were included in the analysis. With a median follow-up of 12.6 months, median PFS and OS were 1.9 and 13.7 months, respectively. An increase in serum choline level at week 7 compared with baseline (Δcholine
conclusionsThis is the first exploratory report of serum choline levels in pan-cancer patients receiving pembrolizumab. The association between improved PFS and Δcholine TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03702309.
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Registered trials
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