ArticleCancer medicine2026
PD-L1 Tumour-Cell/Immune-Cell Phenotype, Early Nodal Status and Serum Biomarkers in Locally Advanced Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Receiving Neoadjuvant Therapy: A Retrospective Cohort Study With Exploratory Survival Analysis.
Article in Cancer medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
PD-L1 tumour-cell (TC) and immune-cell (IC) expression are scored separately in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) but are often collapsed into a combined positive score, potentially obscuring distinct patterns. In this retrospective, single-centre cohort of 61 patients with locally advanced, hypopharynx-predominant HNSCC receiving neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy (n = 46) or chemotherapy alone (n = 15), we scored PD-L1 TC% and IC% separately on pretreatment biopsies, defined four TC/IC phenotypes, classified patients by combined PD-L1/early lymph node metastasis (ELNM) profile and related these to serum biomarkers, neoadjuvant response and survival. TC% and IC% were not correlated (Spearman ρ = -0.13, p = 0.40), supporting their biological independence; among 46 patients with both scores the phenotypes were cold (TC-/IC-, n = 10), TC-intrinsic (n = 10), IC-dominant (n = 12) and hot (TC+/IC+, n = 14). The overall objective response rate after two neoadjuvant cycles was 91.4% (53/58 evaluable), with no progressive disease and did not differ significantly across PD-L1/ELNM profiles (p = 0.15) or between chemoimmunotherapy and chemotherapy alone (95% vs. 79%; p = 0.085). Serum IL-6 showed a non-significant inverse association with IC% (ρ = -0.33, p = 0.10) and was numerically lowest in the hot phenotype; serum tumour markers did not differ by ELNM status. Over a median follow-up of 24.0 months there were three deaths and nine progression events; in exploratory, underpowered analyses neither progression-free nor overall survival differed by PD-L1/ELNM profile (PFS log-rank p = 0.40) or treatment modality (p = 0.64), and the double-positive group did not show the favourable survival suggested by uncontrolled comparisons. These data indicate that PD-L1 TC% and IC% capture independent information and that the TC/IC phenotype distribution is heterogeneous; with few events the survival analysis is hypothesis-generating only, and adequately powered prospective studies with longer follow-up are required.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.