ArticlePathology oncology research : POR2020
The Clinicopathological and Molecular Associations of PD-L1 Expression in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: Analysis of a Series of 10,005 Cases Tested with the 22C3 Assay.
Article in Pathology oncology research : POR, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Why PD-L1 expression varies between studies of lung cancer: results from a Bayesian meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Program death ligand-1 immunocytochemistry in lung cancer cytological samples: A systematic review.Diagnostic cytopathology · 2022Pooled it
- Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) clinical practice guideline on immunotherapy for the treatment of lung cancer and mesothelioma.Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · 2022Guideline
- Worldwide Prevalence of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutations in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.Molecular diagnosis & therapy · 2022Pooled it
- A Bioimaging Study ofMolecular imaging and biology · 2026Article
- Lung Cancer in Never-Smokers: Risk Factors, Driver Mutations, and Therapeutic Advances.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Genomic alteration correlates with programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in 2750 Chinese non-small-cell lung cancer patients.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2026Article
- The role of PD-L1 in EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer.Discover oncology · 2025Review
- Article
- PD-L1 expression in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer is associated with sex and genetic alterations: A retrospective study within the Caucasian population.Thoracic cancer · 2024Article
- Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression between primary and metastatic lymph nodes: a predictor of EGFR-TKI therapy response in non-small cell lung cancer.Respiratory research · 2024Article
- Factors correlating the expression of PD-L1.BMC cancer · 2024Article
- First-line Treatment Patterns and Outcomes in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in Sweden: A Population-based Real-world Study with Focus on Immunotherapy.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2024Article
- Clinicopathological characteristics and tumor infiltrating immune cells associations of PD-L1 tumor expression in non-small cell lung cancer patients.La Tunisie medicale · 2024Article
- Association of PD-L1 expression with driver gene mutations and clinicopathological characteristics in non-small cell lung cancer: A real-world study of 10 441 patients.Thoracic cancer · 2024Article
- Impact of Tumor-intrinsic Molecular Features on Survival and Acquired Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Resistance in ALK-positive NSCLC.Cancer research communications · 2024Article
- Lung cancer in patients who have never smoked - an emerging disease.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2024Review
- Association of PD-L1 expression and clinical outcomes in ROS1 - rearranged advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with crizotinib.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Real-World Response and Outcomes in Patients With NSCLC WithJTO clinical and research reports · 2023Article
- Common driver mutations and programmed death-ligand 1 expression in advanced non-small cell lung cancer in smokers and never smokers.BMC cancer · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
PD-L1 expression testing is mandatory prior to pembrolizumab prescription in non-small cell lung cancer. Our service offers PD-L1 testing using the PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, in parallel with EGFR, ALK, ROS1 and (in some cases) KRAS testing. We correlate PD-L1 expression in 10,005 tumours with patient age and sex, with tumour histological subtypes, with the sampling modality and type of tissue, and with the presence of other molecular alterations. PD-L1 expression testing was performed using the aforementioned assay; tumour proportion scores (TPS) of 1 and 50% were taken as cut-offs for low and high positivity, respectively. EGFR testing was performed using the cobas® EGFR Mutation Test v2. ALK testing was performed using the VENTANA ALK (D5F3) CDx Assay. KRAS testing was performed using pyrosequencing. TPS <1% was seen in 44.4% of tumours, 1-49% in 25.0% and ≥ 50% in 30.6%. We identified no significant relationship with age. Female patients were slightly more likely to express PD-L1. Poorly-differentiated tumour histology and ALK translocation were significantly associated with PD-L1 expression. Rare EGFR mutations tended to be associated with PD-L1 expression. Pleural and nodal metastases were more likely to express PD-L1 than primary tumours, but biopsy and cytological specimens did not show different PD-L1 expression rates. Our data show that the means of acquiring a tumour sample (biopsy versus cytology) does not have a significant impact on PD-L1 expression. However, we found that certain metastatic sites were associated with significantly higher expression rates, which has substantial implications for selection of tissue for testing.
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