Association of Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Expression with Fusion Variants and Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase-Positive Lung Adenocarcinoma Receiving Crizotinib.

CONCLUSION: Positive PD-L1 expression was associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes in patients with ALK-positive lung ADC receiving crizotinib.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Not all lung adenocarcinoma with sensitizing driver mutations experienced durable responses to small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Similar to the negative impact of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in epidermal growth factor receptor mutant tumors treated with TKIs, this study demonstrated that positive PD-L1 expression was also associated with worse response rate and shorter progression-free survival of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive adenocarcinoma treated with crizotinib. Among different ALK fusion partners, tumors with short variants (V3 and V5) had higher PD-L1 compared with long variants (V1, V2, and V6). Testing PD-L1 before initiating crizotinib for ALK-positive lung cancer could be a simple method to provide important prognostic information.
PMID: 32386255 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: The Oncologist - May 8, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Yang CY, Liao WY, Ho CC, Chen KY, Tsai TH, Hsu CL, Liu YN, Su KY, Chang YL, Wu CT, Liao BC, Hsu CC, Hsu WH, Lee JH, Lin CC, Shih JY, Yang JC, Yu CJ Tags: Oncologist Source Type: research