Relationship between programmed death-ligand 1 and clinicopathological characteristics in non-small cell lung cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the correlation between programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in primary lung cancer cells, tumor associated macrophages (TAM) and patients' clinicopathological characteristics. METHODS: From 2008 to 2010, 208 non-small cell lung cancer patients who underwent surgery or CT-guided biopsy were recruited from Huadong Hospital, Fudan University. Immunohistochemistry staining was performed to evaluate the PD-L1 expression in both primary lung cancer cells and CD68 positive TAM. The relationship between PD-L1 expression and the clinical pathology was evaluated using χ(2) test. Spearman's rank correlations were used to determine the correlation between PD-L1 expression in tumor cells and macrophages. RESULTS: Positive PD-L1 expression in primary cancer cells was found in 136 (65.3%) patients, which were negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis (P=0.009) and smoking history (P=0.036). Besides, TAM with PD-L1 expression (found in 116 patients) was positively associated with smoking history (P=0.034), well-differentiation (P=0.029) and negative lymph node metastasis (P=0.0096). A correlation between PD-L1 expression in primary tumor cells and non-small cell lung cancer associated macrophages was found (r=0.228, P=0.021). CONCLUSION: PD-L1, secreted from TAM, might induce cancer cells apoptosis, and decrease lymph node metastasis.

Expression of the adipocytokine resistin and its association with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Fat tissue is viewed as an active endocrine organ that secretes a variety of bioactive substances. Resistin, an adipocyte-secreted factor, is thought to be closely related to obesity, insulin resistance and inflammation, the three most significant risk factors for the progression of pancreatic cancer. However, the association between resistin and pancreatic cancer is still unknown. In this study, pancreatic tumor samples from 45 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were analyzed with immunohistochemistry for the expression of resistin. The correlation between resistin expression and clinicopathological features and prognosis were evaluated. Resistin staining was observed in 48.9% (22 of 45) of the cases. Resistin expression was more frequent in poorly differentiated tumors (9 of 9, 100%) compared to moderately differentiated tumors (11 of 28, 39.3%) and well-differentiated tumors (2 of 8, 25%) (p<0.01). The incidence of resistin expression in patients with Japan Pancreas Society stages III-IV (18 of 27, 66.7%) was significantly higher than in subjects with stages I-II (4 of 18, 22.2%) (p<0.01). Patients with resistin-stained tumors had significantly shorter relapse-free survival times (median, 9 months) than patients with negative tumors (median, 18 months) (p<0.05). In addition, multivariate analysis showed that resistin expression was an independent prognostic factor for relapse-free survival of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (p<0.05). These results demonstrate that resistin may influence the progression of pancreatic tumors and may be a useful predictor of relapse-free survival in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.