NEW ORLEANS, LA USA (UroToday.com) - In this poster presentation, the authors assessed the prognostic ability of tumor PD-L1 and lymphocytic FOXP3 staining in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The authors used tissue microarrays comprised of 165 transurethrally resected bladder tumors from 52 patients and performed immunohistochemistry assessing PD-L1, FOXP3, CD8, and Ki67.
They reported that of the 20 pT1 cases included in the tissue microarray, 5 ultimately progressed to muscle-invasive disease. The authors observed that a higher number of CD8-positive intratumoral lymphocytes, and higher levels of FOXP3 staining within the tumor were associated with an increased risk of progression. Conversely, higher PD-L1 staining within stromal inflammatory cells was associated with a lower risk of disease progression and a trend towards improved disease specific survival. Similarly higher FOXP3 staining within stromal inflammatory cells was associated with a lower rate of progression as well as recurrence.
These findings are counter to prior studies which have demonstrated that higher PD-L1 staining is associated with worse prognosis in bladder cancer as well as in other solid malignancies. These results may reflect the fact that the presence of PD-L1 and FOXP3, alone, may not be adequate to identify NMIBC patients with worse prognosis. Instead the balance of host immunity and tumor factors may be more important in deciding which patients will ultimately progress.
Presented by George Netto at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 15 - 19, 2015 - New Orleans, LA USA
Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA
Reported by Timothy Ito, MD, medical writer for UroToday.com