Non-small cell lung carcinomas with a minor sarcomatoid component and pleomorphic carcinomas are associated with high expression of programmed death ligand 1.

Non-small cell lung carcinomas with a minor sarcomatoid component and pleomorphic carcinomas are associated with high expression of programmed death ligand 1. Pathol Res Pract. 2020 Oct 02;216(12):153238 Authors: Tancoš V, Farkašová A, Kviatkovská Z, Grendár M, Líšková A, Huťka Z, Plank L Abstract Pleomorphic carcinomas are known to be highly programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) types. However, the level of PD-L1 expression in lung carcinomas with a minor sarcomatoid component, comprising less than 10 % of the tumor mass, has not been determined yet. We hypothesized that NSCLC with a minor sarcomatoid component is more closely related to pleomorphic carcinomas in terms of PD-L1 expression than to NSCLC types without sarcomatoid features. The surgical resections from 690 lung carcinoma patients were retrospectively analyzed for the presence of PD-L1 by means of immunohistochemistry using the 22C3 PharmDx assay. The tumor proportion score system was applied to quantify the level of PD-L1 expression. Membranous staining present in ≥ 1 % of tumor cells was chosen as the cut-off to define a positive result for PD-L1 expression. Tumors were allocated into one of four subgroups: "adenocarcinoma", "squamous cell carcinoma", "pleomorphic carcinoma", or "NSCLC with a minor sarcomatoid component". PD-L1 expression in pleomorphic carcinomas (26/32, 81.3 %) and in the subgroup of NSCLC with a mi...
Source: Pathology, Research and Practice - Category: Pathology Authors: Tags: Pathol Res Pract Source Type: research