S100A9 and ORM1 serve as predictors of therapeutic response and prognostic factors in advanced extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma patients treated with pegaspargase/gemcitabine

Pegaspargase combined with gemcitabine have greatly improved the outcomes of advanced extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma (ENKL). However, patients frequently undergo recurrent disease due to chemoresistance, and few predictive parameters are available. The present study explored potential biomarkers to predict the therapeutic response of advanced ENKL treated with pegaspargase/gemcitabine and evaluate the prognostic significance. Through serum proteomic analysis, we identified 61 upregulated and 22 downregulated proteins in nonresponders compared with responders. We further validated that patients with unfavourable treatment outcomes displayed higher levels of S100A9 and ORM1 via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Moreover, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting refractory patients were 81.5% and 71.4% for S100A9 > 62.0 ng/ml, 85.2% and 77.1% for ORM1 > 1436 ug/ml, 100% and 57.1% for S100A9 combined with ORM1. Furthermore, in multivariate analysis elevated levels of S100A9 were associated with poor 2-year OS (40.2% vs. 76.6%, RR = 2.92, p = 0.005) and 2-year PFS (33.1% vs. 61.1%, RR = 2.61 p = 0.011). High ORM1 also predicted inferior 2-year OS (38.7% vs. 76.1, RR = 2.46, p = 0.023) and 2-year PFS (18.4% vs. 73.2%, RR = 2.86, p = 0.009). Our results indicated that S100A9 and ORM1 could serve as reliable predictors of therapeutic response and independent prognostic factors of survival in advanced ENKL patients treated with pegaspargase/gemcitabine.