Association of Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Expression with Fusion Variants and Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase-Positive Lung Adenocarcinoma Receiving Crizotinib.
Ching-Yao YangWei-Yu LiaoChao-Chi HoKuan-Yu ChenTzu-Hsiu TsaiChia-Lin HsuYi-Nan LiuKang-Yi SuYih-Leong ChangChen-Tu WuBin-Chi LiaoChia-Chi HsuWei-Hsun HsuJih-Hsiang LeeChia-Chi LinJin-Yuan ShihJames Chih-Hsin YangChong-Jen YuPublished in: The oncologist (2020)
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.