The artificial intelligence–based model, dubbed SCORPIO, was developed by a team of researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai.
The model is not only cheaper and more accessible, it’s significantly better at predicting outcomes than the two current biomarkers approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to findings published January 6 in Nature Medicine.
"Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a very powerful tool against cancer, but they don’t yet work for most patients," says study co-senior author Luc Morris, MD, a surgeon and research lab director at MSK. "These drugs are expensive, and they can come with serious side effects."
So the key is patient selection - matching the drugs with patients who are most likely to benefit, Dr. Morris says.
"There are some existing tools that predict whether tumors will respond to these drugs, but they tend to rely on advanced genomic testing that is not widely available around the world," he adds. "We wanted to develop a model that can help guide treatment decisions using widely available data, such as routine blood tests."
Yoo SK, Fitzgerald CW, Cho BA, Fitzgerald BG, Han C, Koh ES, Pandey A, Sfreddo H, Crowley F, Korostin MR, Debnath N, Leyfman Y, Valero C, Lee M, Vos JL, Lee AS, Zhao K, Lam S, Olumuyide E, Kuo F, Wilson EA, Hamon P, Hennequin C, Saffern M, Vuong L, Hakimi AA, Brown B, Merad M, Gnjatic S, Bhardwaj N, Galsky MD, Schadt EE, Samstein RM, Marron TU, Gönen M, Morris LGT, Chowell D.
Prediction of checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy efficacy for cancer using routine blood tests and clinical data.
Nat Med. 2025 Jan 6. doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-03398-5