Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jul;6(4):534-8.
doi: 10.1111/1759-7714.12247. Epub 2015 Mar 5.

Circulating PD-L1 in NSCLC patients and the correlation between the level of PD-L1 expression and the clinical characteristics

Jie Zhang  1 , Jing Gao  1 , Yanyan Li  1 , Jun Nie  1 , Ling Dai  1 , Weiheng Hu  1 , Xiaoling Chen  1 , Jindi Han  1 , Xiangjuan Ma  1 , Guangming Tian  1 , Di Wu  1 , Lin Shen  1 , Jian Fang  1
Affiliations

Circulating PD-L1 in NSCLC patients and the correlation between the level of PD-L1 expression and the clinical characteristics

Jie Zhang et al. Thorac Cancer. 2015 Jul.

Abstract

Background: The programmed cell death-1/programmed cell death-1 ligand (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway plays a crucial role in tumor evasion. This study evaluated the association between circulating PD-L1 expression and clinical characteristics in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods: A total of 109 advanced NSCLC and 65 healthy patients from the Beijng Cancer Hospital were enrolled in the study. Circulating PD-L1 expression was tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The associations between the level of PD-L1 expression and clinicopathologic features and prognosis were statistically analyzed.

Results: The expression of PD-L1 in advanced NSCLC patients was significantly upregulated compared with the healthy control (P < 0.001). The expression of PD-L1 was significantly correlated with abdominal organ metastasis (P = 0.004). A high PD-L1 expression had a worse prognosis than a low expression in patients (18.7 vs. 26.8 month, P < 0.001).

Conclusions: PD-L1 was elevated in advanced NSCLC patients and may play an important role in tumor immune evasion and patient prognosis.

Keywords: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA); PD-L1; immunotherapy; lung cancer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Receiver operating characteristic curve for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kaplan–Meier overall survival curves in patients with low and high expression. formula image, PD-L1 low expression; formula image, PD-L1 high expression; formula image, censored.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Pardoll DM. The blockade of immune checkpoints in cancer immunotherapy. Nat Rev Cancer. 2012;12:252–264. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Keir ME, Butte MJ, Freeman GJ, Sharpe AH. PD-1 and its ligands in tolerance and immunity. Annu Rev Immunol. 2008;26:677–704. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brahmer JR, Tykodi SS, Chow LQ, et al. Safety and activity of anti-PD-L1 antibody in patients with advanced cancer. N Engl J Med. 2012;366:2455–2465. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Herbst RS, Soria JC, Kowanetz M, et al. Predictive correlates of response to the anti-PD-L1 antibody MPDL3280A in cancer patients. Nature. 2014;515:563–567. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mu CY, Huang JA, Chen Y, Chen C, Zhang XG. High expression of PD-L1 in lung cancer may contribute to poor prognosis and tumor cells immune escape through suppressing tumor infiltrating dendritic cells maturation. Med Oncol. 2011;28:682–688. - PubMed