UMMS Affiliation
Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology; Department of Pathology
Publication Date
2018-05-29
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Cancer Biology | Diseases | Hematology | Immunoprophylaxis and Therapy | Neoplasms | Oncology
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Extrapulmonary small cell carcinomas (ESCC) are rare but aggressive tumors. Relapses are common despite treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Prospective data for treatment of ESCC are lacking; treatment of these cancers usually incorporates lung small cell carcinoma treatment recommendations. Cancer staging remains the most important prognostic factor. Cancer immunotherapy targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway has shown efficacy in multiple tumor types, and could be an appealing treatment strategy for these rare tumors.
METHODS: We investigated PD-L1 expression by immunochemistry (IHC) in ESCCs diagnosed at University of Massachusetts Medical Center, from 1999 to 2016. 34 cases with sufficient material were selected for PD-L1 IHC analysis using clone E1L3N. PD-L1 expression was evaluated using the combined positive score (CPS). Retrospective chart review was performed. We evaluated the incidence and prognostic value of PD-L1 expression in ESCC at our institution.
RESULTS: Twelve out 34 cases (35%) had PD-L1 CPS scores > /=1. Ten cases had CPS scores ranging 1-5, whereas 2 cases had CPS scores > 80. The overall response rate to the standard chemotherapy with/without radiotherapy in the PD-L1 positive group was 80% versus 67% for the PDL-1 negative group (p-value 0.67). The median overall survival for the PD-L1 positive group, regardless of stage, was 11.5 months versus 7 months for PD-L1 negative group (p-value 0.34). Patients with limited stage disease with positive PD-L1 had a median survival of 53 months compared to 15 months for patients with PD-L1 negative limited stage (p-value 0.80).
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that at least one third of our ESCC tissue samples expressed PD-L1. There was a trend for higher response rates to the standard chemotherapy with/without radiotherapy and improved survival in PD-L1 positive patients. Further studies are required to understand the implications of immune dysregulation in these aggressive tumors. PD-L1/PD-1 inhibitors should be investigated in this group of patients.
Keywords
Combined positive score, Extrapulmonary small cell carcinomas, PD-L1 expression and prognostic value
Rights and Permissions
© The Author(s). 2018. Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
DOI of Published Version
10.1186/s40425-018-0359-1
Source
J Immunother Cancer. 2018 May 29;6(1):42. doi: 10.1186/s40425-018-0359-1. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Journal for immunotherapy of cancer
Related Resources
PubMed ID
29843803
Repository Citation
Salhab, Mohammed; Migdady, Yazan; Donahue, Melanie; Xiong, Yiqin; Dresser, Karen A.; Walsh, William; Chen, Benjamin J.; and Liebmann, James, "Immunohistochemical expression and prognostic value of PD-L1 in Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma: a single institution experience" (2018). Open Access Articles. 3465.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/3465
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Cancer Biology Commons, Hematology Commons, Immunoprophylaxis and Therapy Commons, Neoplasms Commons, Oncology Commons