Abstract 874P
Background
Cervical cancer remains a major world health problem for women. Immunological mechanisms has been described in progression of this disease.Recent progress in the field of immunology supports the theory that the immune system has a role in cancer development through “cancer immunoediting”. Programmed death 1 (PD-1) is a key immune-checkpoint receptor of B7 CD28 family that regulates T cell activation. It has been hypothesized that PD L-1 in tumour cells bind to the receptor PD 1 in T cells to downregulate antitumour T cell activity and facilitate immune evasion,also PD L1 expression has also been found to be associated with worse survival in solid tumours. As data is still limited on the pattern of expression of PD-L1 in cervical cancer in our setting, this is an effort to identify the pattern of expression and potential candidates for anti PD 1/PD L1 immunotherapy.
Methods
It is a prospective study with a target sample size of 100 cervical cancer patients consecutively registered in RCC during 2018 suitable for radical treatment were selected.Paraffin embedded, formalin fixed cervical biopsy specimens were collected. Immunohistochemical staining for PD-L1 expression was performed on selected cervical biopsy specimens.
Results
Overall, PD-L1 was positive in 25 of 99(25.3%) cervical carcinomas. Subcategorically, PD-L1 was positive in 18 of 81 (22%) squamous cell carcinomas, 7 of 16 (43.7%) adeno carcinomas.No statistically significant associations were found between PD LI positivity and various clinicopathological characteristics and response to treatment.
Conclusions
Cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a novel therapeutic option for multiple types of cancer, giving new hope to patients with recurrent cancer. We have found out that a significant proportion of patients in our setting was PD L1 positive. But further validation of scoring of PD L1 should be done which will lead to more uniformity in the positivity and negativity across the globe.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Intramural funding for Academic Research, Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.