Thymus Composition Predicts Pneumonitis Risk in Lung Cancer Therapy

medRxiv Oncology | |

BackgroundDurvalumab consolidation after concurrent chemoradiotherapy (cCRT) is the standard-of-care for unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without actionable driver mutations. However, pneumonitis remains a dose-limiting toxicity that often precludes or interrupts immunotherapy. Conventional predictors based on lung dosimetry alone exhibit limited individual-level discrimination. We investigated whether the thymus, long considered vestigial in adults, influences post-treatment immune recovery and…

Topics: lung-cancer, blood-cancer, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, radiation