PD-L1 Testing in Cytological Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Specimens: A Comparison with Biopsies and Review of the Literature.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression is used for treatment prediction in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). While cytology may be the only available material in the routine clinical setting, testing in clinical trials has mainly been based on biopsies.

Methods

We included 2 retrospective cohorts of paired, concurrently sampled, cytological specimens and biopsies. Also, the literature on PD-L1 in paired cytological/histological samples was reviewed. Focus was on the cutoff levels ≥1 and ≥50% positive tumor cells.

Results

Using a 3-tier scale, PD-L1 was concordant in 40/47 (85%) and 66/97 (68%) of the paired NSCLC cases in the 2 cohorts, with kappa 0.77 and 0.49, respectively. In the former cohort, all discordant cases had lower score in cytology.

SUBMITTER: Mansour MSI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8686721 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature