Expression of programmed death ligand 1 in liver cancer and its clinical significance / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the expression of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) in liver cancer tissues and its clinical significance.@*Methods@#The expression levels of PD-L1 in 110 liver cancer tissues, including 95 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma and 15 cases of cholangiocarcinoma were detected by using immunohistochemical staining method, and the relationship between PD-L1 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma was analyzed.@*Results@#Immunohistochemistry results showed that the positive rate of PD-L1 in liver cancer tissues was 69.1% (76/110), and the positive rate of membrane and cytoplasm was 46.4% (51/110) and 22.7% (25/110), respectively. The positive rate of PD-L1 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma was higher than that in cholangiocarcinoma [78.9% (75/95) vs. 6.7% (1/15)], and the difference was statistically significant (χ 2 = 31.693, P < 0.01). The positive expression of PD-L1 was closely associated with the depth of invasion and TNM stage of hepatocellular carcinoma (both χ2 = 4.629, both P = 0.031), but there was no relationship with the patients'age, gender and pathological grade (all P > 0.05). Further analysis showed that protein expression localization of PD-L1 was closely related to the pathological grade in hepatocellular carcinoma (P = 0.013).@*Conclusion@#The positive expression of PD-L1 in hepatocellular carcinoma is closely associated with depth of invasion and TNM stage, which provides a theoretical basis for the immunotherapy of liver cancer targeting PD-L1.