Hepatocellular Carcinoma-Circulating Tumor Cells Expressing PD-L1 Are Prognostic and Potentially Associated With Response to Checkpoint Inhibitors.

ABSTRACT: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of mortality. Checkpoint inhibitors of programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) have shown great efficacy, but lack biomarkers that predict response. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have promise as a liquid-biopsy biomarker; however, data on HCC CTCs expressing PD-L1 have not been reported. We sought to detect PD-L1-expressing HCC-CTCs and investigated their role as a prognostic and predictive biomarker. Using an antibody-based platform, CTCs were enumerated/phenotyped from a prospective cohort of 87 patients with HCC (49 early-stage, 22 locally advanced, and 16 metastatic), 7 patients with cirrhosis, and 8 healthy controls. Immunocytochemistry identified total HCC CTCs (4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole-posit

SUBMITTER: Winograd P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7527695 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature