PD-L1 Expression in Lung Cancer
Open accessAbstract
Immunotherapies targeted against programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and its receptor (PD-1) have improved survival in a subset of patients with advanced lung cancer. PD-L1 protein expression has emerged as a biomarker that predicts which patients are more likely to respond to immunotherapy. The understanding of PD-L1 as a biomarker is complicated by the history of use of different immunohistochemistry platforms with different PD-L1 antibodies, scoring systems, and positivity cut-offs for immunotherapy clinical trials with different anti-PD-L1 and anti-PD-1 drugs. Herein, we summarize the brief history of PD-L1 as a biomarker and describe the challenges remaining to harmonize PD-L1 detection and interpretation for best patient care.
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Existing predictive biomarkers (PD-L1 expression, TMB, microsatellite instability, and mismatch repair deficiency) have clinical utility in specific contexts, but their predictive accuracy varies considerably across tumor histologies and patient populations.
“While these markers have clinical utility in specific contexts, their predictive accuracy varies considerably across tumor histologies and patient populations.”
From PathTIGR: A pathway topology-informed graph representation learning framework for immunotherapy response prediction (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
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- Authors
- Yu, H., Boyle, T. A., Zhou, C., Rimm, D. L., & Hirsch, F. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Cancer Center (US)
- Moffitt Cancer Center (US)
- Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital (CN)
- Yale University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hirsch, Fred R.
- Venue
- Journal of Thoracic Oncology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-07
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 964-975
- ISSN
- 1556-0864 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5353357
- OpenAlex
- W2339631364
- Cited by
- 482
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 45 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 77 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 40 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 2.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2017-01-01)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Thoracic Oncology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5P50CA058187-20)
- NIH (P50 CA058187)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Immunotherapy and Biomarkers
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Lung Cancer Research Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Lung Cancer Treatments and Mutations
- Keywords
- PD-L1 expression, lung cancer, PD-1/PD-L1 axis, immunotherapy, predictive biomarkers, immunohistochemistry, PD-L1 inhibitors, scoring system
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Humans, Immunohistochemistry, Immunotherapy, Lung Neoplasms, Biomarkers, Mice, B7-H1 Antigen
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