| The following article features coverage from the American Thyroid Association (ATA) 2018 meeting. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage. |
High serum soluble PD-L1 (sPD-L1) expression is associated with shorter disease-free survival (DFS) among patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), according to a study presented at the 88th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association in Washington, D.C.1
“Our study is the first to confirm that elevated serum sPD-L1 expression is significantly associated with DFS in PTC,” the authors wrote.
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High tumor expression of PD-L1 is associated with poor prognosis in thyroid cancer, and sPD-L1 has been shown to be involved in cancer pathogenesis. It is currently unknown whether sPD-L1 is associated with thyroid cancer. The aim of this study was to determine if sPD-L1 serum levels are prognostic in PTC.
The study included 101 patients with confirmed PTC. Pretreatment serum sPD-L1 and PD-L1 tumor expression were analyzed. PD-L1 positivity was defined as staining of at least 5% tumor cells.
Patients with PTC demonstrated significantly greater levels of sPD-L1 at 0.48 ng/mL compared with 0.37 ng/mL in healthy controls (P = .028). Elevated sPD-L1 was also associated with extrathyroidal extension (P = .015).
Among patients with PTC, higher levels of sPD-L1 was significantly associated with shorter DFS at 14 months compared with 22 months with lower levels of sPD-L1 (P = .011). Serum sPD-L1 was the only factor predictive of DFS in this study.
The authors concluded that “sPD-L1 may provide clinicians with a noninvasive biomarker that can lessen dependence on tissue biopsy and identify aggressive thyroid cancers at an earlier stage.” They noted that sPD-L1 may also be a biomarker to help predict response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in PTC.
Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of the ATA 2018 meeting by visiting the conference page.
Reference
- Aghajani M, Roberts T, Yang T, De Souza P, Niles N. Elevated levels of soluble programmed cell death ligand 1 (sPD-L1) are associated with reduced survival in papillary thyroid cancer. Presented at: the 88th American Thyroid Association Annual Meeting; Washington, D.C.: October 3-7, 2018. Abstract poster 184.
