Longevity & AgingCT Scans Reveal Thymus Health Predicts Immunotherapy Success Across Cancers
Researchers developed a deep-learning system to quantify thymic health from routine chest CT scans and applied it to 3,476 cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors. Higher thymic health scores were significantly associated with reduced cancer progression and lower all-cause mortality in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), independent of established biomarkers like PD-L1 and tumor mutation burden. In the prospective TRACERx lung cancer study, thymic health correlated with T cell receptor diversity, T cell receptor excision circles, and immune-signaling pathways, validating it as a proxy for adaptive immune competence. The association extended to melanoma, breast, and renal cancers, suggesting pan-cancer relevance. These findings position thymic health as a novel, tumor-agnostic biomarker for immunotherapy response.
