Genomic alterations in biliary tract cancer predict prognosis and immunotherapy outcomes

Background: Recently, immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has shown promising efficacy in biliary tract cancer (BTC), which includes gallbladder cancer (GBC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CHOL). Understanding the association between immunotherapy outcomes and the genomic profile of advanced BTC may further improve the clinical benefits from immunotherapy.

Methods: Genomic tumor DNA was isolated from 98 Chinese patients with advanced BTC and used for targeted next-generation sequencing of 416 cancer-related genes to identify the genomic alterations common to advanced BTC. Thirty-four patients had received ICI camrelizumab plus gemcitabine and oxaliplatin (from the NCT03486678 trial) as a first-line treatment. Tumor-infiltrating immune cells were evaluated using immunofluorescence staining.

Results: KRAS and TP53 mutations were much more frequent in the advanced-stage BTC cohort than in other cohorts with mostly early stage disease. Specifically, KRAS-TP53 co-mutations were favored in advanced CHOL, with a favorable response to immunotherapy, while single KRAS mutations predicted poor prognosis and immunotherapy outcomes for CHOL. Compared with GBC, CHOL had more mutations in genes involved in KRAS signaling; a high mutation load in these genes correlated with poor immunotherapy outcomes and may subsequently cause inferior immunotherapy outcomes for CHOL relative to GBC. Furthermore, a genomic signature including 11 genes was developed; their mutated subtype was associated with poor prognosis and immunotherapy outcomes in both CHOL and GBC. Transcriptome analyses suggested immune dysfunction in the signature mutated subtype, which was validated by tumor microenvironment (TME) evaluation based on detection of immune cell infiltration. Importantly, the signature wild-type subtype with favorable TME may be an advantageous population of immunotherapy.

Conclusions: Genomic alterations in advanced BTC were associated with specific prognosis and immunotherapy outcomes. Combining genomic classification with TME evaluation further improved the stratification of immunotherapy outcomes.