Recently, the lung immune prognostic index (LIPI) is considered to be associated with outcomes in multiple solid tumors treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). We sought to determine whether LIPI has the same predictive effect in advanced gastric cancer (AGC).

The clinical data of a real-world, retrospective cohort of AGC patients treated with ICIs were retrospectively analyzed. Based on pre-treatment dNLR>3 and LDH>250 U/L, patients were assigned to one of three groups: good (0 factors), intermediate (1 factor), and poor (2 factors). The subjects were divided into two groups: LIPI-good and LIPI-intermediate/poor groups. Then, the disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared between these two groups.

Finally, 120 patients were enrolled in the study, for both the good group and intermediate/poor group, DCR was 69.5% vs. 42.1% (P = 0.004). In a multivariate analysis, the LIPI-intermediate/poor group was associated with progressive disease, with an OR of 2.57 (95% CI, 1.05–6.30; P = 0.039). Patients with a good LIPI score had a longer survival compared with those with intermediate/poor scores, with an estimated median OS of 10.4 vs. 3.9 months (HR = 2.59, 95% CI: 1.69–3.98) and a median PFS of 7.7 vs. 2.1 months (HR=2.95, 95% CI:1.91–4.56). Multivariate analysis indicated that the intermediate/poor LIPI was independently associated with OS (HR: 2.32, 95% CI: 1.44–3.72) and PFS (HR: 2.48, 95% CI: 1.53–4.03).

These data are the first to suggest that the pretreatment LIPI was well correlated with the outcomes of patients with AGC treated with ICIs.