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The worsening impact of programmed cell death ligand 1 in ovarian clear cell carcinomas

  • Gynecologic Oncology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the clinical significance of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in ovarian clear cell carcinoma (CCC).

Materials and methods

Patients with CCC who underwent primary surgery at our hospital between 1984 and 2014 were enrolled in this study. PD-L1 and mismatch repair (MMR) protein expression in tumor cells, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), including cluster of differentiation (CD) 8, CD4, forkhead box P3 (FOXP3), programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), and BAF250a, were evaluated using immunohistochemistry. The association between PD-L1 expression, clinicopathological features, prognosis, and expression of several proteins was investigated.

Results

Of the 125 patients with CCC, 17 had negative PD-L1 and 108 had positive PD-L1. Patients with positive PD-L1 expression showed a lower response to chemotherapy (p = 0.01). In addition, patients with positive PD-L1 showed worse progression-free survival (PFS, p = 0.01) and overall survival (OS, p = 0.01) than that in patients with negative PD-L1 expression. Multivariate analyses for PFS and OS showed that PD-L1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for PFS (hazard ratio [HR] 7.81, p < 0.01) and OS (HR 12.90, p < 0.01). PD-L1 expression was not associated with the expression of several TILs or proteins.

Conclusion

The expression of PD-L1 was related to a lower response to chemotherapy and worse prognosis in CCC. These results may be useful for the development of new treatments.

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Availability of data and material

The corresponding author will send dataset according to reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.jp) for English language editing.

Funding

This study was conducted without any financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National Defense Medical College Hospital, 3-2 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama, 359-8513, Japan

    Hiroko Matsuura, Morikazu Miyamoto, Taira Hada, Hiroki Ishibashi, Hideki Iwahashi, Soichiro Kakimoto, Rie Suzuki, Tsubasa Ito, Jin Suminokura & Masashi Takano

  2. Department of Basic Pathology, National Defense Medical College Hospital, Tokorozawa, Saitama, 359-8513, Japan

    Hitoshi Tsuda

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  1. Hiroko Matsuura
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Contributions

Protocol/project development: HM, MM, HT, and MT. Data collection or management: TH, HI, HI, SK, RS, TI, and JS. Data analysis: HM, MM, HT. Manuscript writing/editing: HM, MM, and MT.

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Correspondence to Morikazu Miyamoto.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the National Defense Medical College Hospital (No. 2769).

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Matsuura, H., Miyamoto, M., Hada, T. et al. The worsening impact of programmed cell death ligand 1 in ovarian clear cell carcinomas. Arch Gynecol Obstet 306, 2133–2142 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-022-06582-5

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