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
. 2017 Feb 21;8(8):13320-13328.
doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.14519.

Programmed cell death-ligand 1 expression predicts survival in patients with gastric carcinoma with microsatellite instability

Junhun Cho  1 , Jeeyun Lee  2 , Heejin Bang  3 , Seung Tae Kim  2 , Se Hoon Park  2 , Ji Yeong An  4 , Min Gew Choi  4 , Joon Ho Lee  4 , Tae Sung Sohn  4 , Jae Moon Bae  4 , Won Ki Kang  2 , Sung Kim  4 , Kyoung-Mee Kim  3
Affiliations

Programmed cell death-ligand 1 expression predicts survival in patients with gastric carcinoma with microsatellite instability

Junhun Cho et al. Oncotarget. .

Abstract

Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is expressed in a subgroup of gastric cancers that may benefit from immunotherapy. Microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) is a potential predictive factor for response to immunotherapy targeting the PD-1 or its ligand PD-L1. The relationship between PD-L1 expression and MSI-H status remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated PD-L1 expression in patients with MSI-H gastric cancer. We analyzed PD-L1 expression in 78 MSI-H gastric cancer tissue samples using immunohistochemistry. PD-L1 expression was classified as expression on tumor cells or on immune cells. We observed PD-L1 expression in 48 gastric cancer samples (61.5%), consisting of 7 (9.0%) cases with tumor PD-L1 expression and 47 (60.3%) cases with immune cell PD-L1 expression. Immune cell PD-L1 expression was frequently associated with intestinal type cancer by the Lauren classification (p = 0.015), with a lower risk of lymph node metastasis (p = 0.027) and lower tumor stages (p = 0.029) compared to MSI-H gastric cancers without PD-L1 expression. Moreover, immune cell PD-L1 expression was an independent favorable prognostic factor for overall survival (versus PD-L1 negative; hazard ratio, 3.451; 95% confidence interval, 1.172-12.745; p = 0.025). In MSI-H gastric cancer, PD-L1 expression was observed to be independently associated with a longer survival.

Keywords: gastric cancer; immune; prognosis; programmed death-ligand 1; therapy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. A representative photomicrograph of PD-L1 immunohistochemistry showing high staining in the deeply invasive front of the tumor
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kaplan-Meier survival curves of disease-free survival and overall survival according to PD-L1 expression in tumor cells (A, B) and immune cells (C, D). No statistics were computed in A and B because all PD-L1TC+ (n = 7) cases were censored.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A tumor was scored as 0 (A), 1+ (B), 2+ (C), or 3+ (D) based on the intensity of cytoplasmic and/or membranous staining in > 10% of tumor cells.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kelley JR, Duggan JM. Gastric cancer epidemiology and risk factors. J Clin Epidemiol. 2003;56:1–9. - PubMed
    1. Wu CW, Lo SS, Shen KH, Hsieh MC, Chen JH, Chiang JH, Lin HJ, Li AF, Lui WY. Incidence and factors associated with recurrence patterns after intended curative surgery for gastric cancer. World J Surg. 2003;27:153–158. - PubMed
    1. Catalano V, Labianca R, Beretta GD, Gatta G, de Braud F, Van Cutsem E. Gastric cancer. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol. 2009;71:127–164. - PubMed
    1. Blank C, Mackensen A. Contribution of the PD-L1/PD-1 pathway to T-cell exhaustion: an update on implications for chronic infections and tumor evasion. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2007;56:739–745. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pyo JS, Kang G, Kim JY. Prognostic role of PD-L1 in malignant solid tumors: a meta-analysis. Int J Biol Markers. 2016:0. - PubMed

MeSH terms