METHODS
This retrospective cohort comprised tissue microarray blocks of 391 cases examined at the same institute
between 2000-2012. All cases were completely resected tumors, without neoadjuvant therapy, with
more than 5 years of follow-up. Clinical follow-up and all pathologic parameters were recorded. PD-L1
immunohistochemistry (SP263) was applied, then staining details including density, percentage, and
patterns were noted for tumor areas and immune cells. PD-L1 expression results were analyzed, and its
relationship with prognostic parameters and survival was investigated.
RESULTS
PD-L1 expression was detected in 90 (24.8%) cases: 55 in only tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes
(TILs), 35 in both tumor and TILs. Statistically, there was no significant relationship between PD-L1
expression and survival. However, high histologic grade, high scores in pleomorphism and mitosis,
mild stromal reaction, dense immune cell infiltration, perineural invasion, absence of lymph node
metastasis, negativity of ER and PR, HER2 expression, and high Ki-67 results had a significant relationship
with PD-L1 expression.
CONCLUSION
Consistent with the literature, our results showed that PD-L1 expression in triple-negative and HER2
overexpressed types and in the presence of TILs is higher than in other breast cancers.
Keywords: Breast carcinoma; immunotherapy; PD-L1; tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes
Immunotherapy has been applied for the treatment
of some cancers, and many studies have been
conducted about it in recent years. It aims to increase
the immune cells" effect while targeting checkpoints
such as cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated protein-4
(CTLA-4) and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1).
[
The study included 391 cases who underwent breast-conserving surgery or mastectomy in our university hospital, were diagnosed with invasive IBC, and had at least 5 years of follow-up between 2000 and 2012. Cases that had neoadjuvant therapy, a tumor <0.4 cm, and the presence of <2 paraffin blocks were excluded.
Clinicopathologic parameters (age, gender, surgery
type, histologic type, grade, grade scores, tumor size, insitu
component, stromal and inflammatory reactions
grouped as mild, moderate, and dense, lymphovascular invasion (LVI), perineural invasion (PNI), lymph
node (LN) status, ER, PR, HER2, and Ki-67) were recorded
according to the WHO-2019 classification[
Tissue Microarray (TMA) Construction
Immunohistochemistry
34 cores on TMA slides were excluded due to missing
during the staining process. Cores that were halfmissed
but comprised at least 200 tumor cells were included
in the study.
On each slide, tonsil tissue provided information
about staining density, scored as 0 (no staining), 1
(low), 2 (moderate), and 3 (high). Staining density was
also scored from 0 (no staining) to 3 (Fig.
Statistical Analysis
Invasive tumor areas without necrosis and close to peripheral
TILs were identified on Hematoxylin and Eosin-
stained slides. 397 samples sized 0.4 cm were taken
from tumor blocks and transferred to TMA blocks.
The immunohistochemical staining was performed by
an automatic device (Ventana Benchmark XT, Ventana
Medical Systems, Tucson, Arizona) with the optiview
DAB IHC detection kit and the antibody of PD-L1
sp263 clone.
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Chicago,
IL, USA) 21.0 was utilized for statistical analyses.
Descriptive statistics were expressed as mean, standard
deviation, median, minimum, and maximum
values for quantitative parameters, while numbers
and percentages were calculated for non-quantitative
parameters. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-
Wilk tests were used for data distribution. The Mann-
Whitney U and Chi-Squared tests were exploited for
comparing non-parametric data. The binary logistic
regression test was used in the analysis of statistically
significant data. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and
Log-rank statistics (Mantel Cox) were utilized for
survival analyses. Later on, the Cox proportional hazards
model was performed for multivariable regression
analysis. The confidence interval was accepted as
95%, and p<0.05 was considered significant.
The mean age was 51.4 (min-max 28-87, median 50), and these results were similar in females. There were four males (1.1%), and the mean age was lower than that of females at 43.5 (min-max 33-55, median 43).
Surgery types were as follows: 169 (46.6%) modified radical mastectomy, 146 (40.2%) partial mastectomy, and 48 (13.2%) simple mastectomy. There were 185 (51%) right and 178 (49%) left breast involvements.
Most cases had a single tumor focus (294; 80.9%),
and the mean size was 2.66±1.57 (min-max 0.5-14cm,
median 2.5) cm. The most frequent histological type
was IBC- no special type (IBC-NST), and 308 (84.8%)
cases also had in-situ carcinoma. Axillary LN metastasis
was in 211 (58.1%) cases. Sentinel LNs were examined
in 184 cases, and 50% were positive (Table
Survival analyses were performed on 356 cases: 66 (18.5%) dead, 290 (81.4%) alive. The mean follow-up period was 101.8 (21-255, median 94.5) months. Recurrence analyses were performed on 358 cases. Eightyeight (24.6%) cases had a recurrence, and the mean recurrence time was 60.9 (0-167, median 60) months.
PD-L1 Expression
90 (24.7%) of 363 tumor cores showed PD-L1 positivity:
35 in both tumor and immune cells, and 55 in
only immune cells (Fig.
Most tumors had heterogeneous staining patterns in
terms of complete and incomplete membranous staining (Fig.
Relationship of PD-L1 Expression with Clinicopathological
Parameters and Survival
The correlation between PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological
parameters was summarized in Table
The year of diagnosis and PD-L1 expression weren't correlated (p=0.127); however, when years were divided into four groups, the PD-L1 positivity ratio was lower in older years (2000-2002: 5%, 2004-2006: 12.7%, 2007-2009: 31.7%, 2010-2012: 50.7%).
PD-L1 positivity was higher in ER-negative, PRnegative, and HER2-positive cases (p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001). Ki-67 was higher in PD-L1 positive cases (p=0.001). When we classified the cases as "Luminal A (ER+, PR+, HER2-), Luminal B (ER/PR+, HER2-), HER2 expressing type (ER-, PR-, HER2+) and TNBC (ER-, PR-, HER2-)", TNBC and HER2 expressing types showed higher PD-L1 positivity (p<0.001).
Among logistic regression analysis, PD-L1 positivity
was correlated with stromal and immune response
and loss of HER2 expression (Table
However, PD-L1 expression had no relationship
with overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival
(DFS) (p=0.157, p=0.160) (Fig.
On the other hand, the evaluation of PD-L1 by
IHC is still in process and has many varieties regarding
the originated organ, cell types, clone of the antibody,
and therapy agent. In gastric carcinomas, cytoplasmic
staining was also considered positive.[
We excluded cytological material or small biopsies
and included cases with complete removal of tumor
tissue. Even if TMA samples were evaluated in our
study, the staining was heterogeneous in all our positive cases for both tumor cells and immune cells. Dill
et al.[
Regarding the relation of PD-L1 expression and
histomorphologic features, some studies showed that
PD-L1 was expressed in IBC with medullary features
and in tumors with apocrine and metaplastic
features.[
Higher PD-L1 expression in HER2 expressing IBC
and TNBCs, which are known as worse prognostic
subtypes, was shown in many studies. Parallelly in our
study, PD-L1 expression was significantly correlated
with ER/PR negativity and HER2 positivity and was
higher in the same subtypes of IBCs. In one study, PDL1
mRNA level was lower in ER-α positive IBCs. In
this study, performed in cell cultures of TNBCs, PD-L1
mRNA level decreased in the presence of ectopic ER-α
expression.[
PD-L1 expression in TILs was also reported as significant.[
The presence and density of TILs had prognostic
significance in HER2 expressing and TNBCs.[
Hou et al.[
Our study included three cases who underwent
synchronous bilateral breast surgery. In two cases,
PD-L1 was negative in both tumors and TILs in both
breasts. In the other case, there was 1% weak staining
in both tumor cells and TILs in the larger tumor (4.5
cm, grade III) and 10% staining in TIL in the other BC focus (0.8 cm, grade II). This may be due to the limitation
of sampling or differences in PD-L1 expression
according to tumor size and grade. Indeed, considering
all our cases, there also was no significant relationship
between tumor diameter and PD-L1 expression, as in
the literature.[
In one of our cases, both breasts were operated on
for IBC-NST (HER2+, ER-, PR-) with an interval of two
years: On one side, there was no PD-L1 expression in
tumor cells, whereas 10% weak positivity in TILs (4 cm,
grade II). In the other breast, there was 2% weak staining
in tumor cells and 20% in TILs (1.7 cm, grade III). This
result may be due to treatment. Although PD-L1 levels
were found to be high in patients treated with Trastuzumab,
a direct relationship between HER2 and PD-L1
was not reported in the Cancer Genome Atlas.[
In BCs, the prognostic importance of PD-L1 is
controversial. In some studies, as PD-L1 expression
increased, survival decreased.[
The density of TILs is also effective in survival. TILs
are grouped as low, medium, and intense, according
to density.[
Schmid et al.[
In a meta-analysis, there was no correlation between
patient age and PD-L1 expression similar to our
study.[
We couldn't find a statistically significant relationship
between PD-L1 expression and survival such
as Li et al.[
Limitations of the Study
As a method, TMA studies facilitate the evaluation of
many cases at the same time and produce quite important
results. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten
that evaluation is limited to a small area. Particularly
in the case of having heterogeneous results
in the same case, evaluation of TMA may lead to false
positive or negative results. Even if the tumor samples
were obtained 0.4 cm in size in our study, the limited
sampling may not be representative of the entire tumor,
and positive cells may not be detected in the sampled
part due to the heterogeneous staining of PD-L1. We
herein found a correspondence between better OS/
DFS and PD-L1 expression with an insignificant pvalue.
However, we couldn't compare the treatments in
detail. Our results might be affected due to the presence
of any difference in treatments or accompanied
diseases of the patients. In our series, there were some
limitations due to lower numbers. The number of rare
conditions such as male BC, synchronous tumors,
and examined tumors with close metastasis within a
couple of years were limited. Also, even if we found a
contradiction between old paraffin age and PD-L1 expression,
the number of older age paraffin blocks was
lower than recent blocks. These conditions with lower
numbers should be examined with larger series.
We couldn't show any significant effect of PD-L1 expression on survival. Many parameters may cause this result. Decreasing PD-L1 positivity in materials belonging to older years suggests that the material should be examined more up-to-date and fresh. Differences between treatments, IHC antibodies, and evaluation methods may cause false negative or positive results. PD-L1 assessment needs standardization.
Although immunotherapy prolongs the survival of cancer patients, it would be an ideal treatment when it could only target the tumor and not be systemic. Further studies and finding other target points are needed.
Ethics Committee Approval: The study was approved by the Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine Ethics Committee (no: 89616, date: 07/03/2018).
Authorship contributions: Concept - R.A., H.D., Ş.İ.; Design - R.A., H.D., Ş.İ.; Supervision - R.A., H.D., Ş.İ.; Funding - Ş.İ.; Materials - R.A.; Data collection and/or processing - R.A.; Data analysis and/or interpretation - R.A., Ş.İ.; Literature search - R.A., Ş.İ.; Writing - R.A., H.D., Ş.İ.; Critical review - R.A., H.D., Ş.İ.
Conflict of Interest: All authors declared no conflict of interest. Use of AI for Writing Assistance: None.
Financial Support: This study has been supported by Istanbul University (IU-BAP no: TTU-2018-30597).
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.