The significance of programed cell death-ligand 1 expression in vestibular schwannoma

• Published in: Brain and behavior Vol. 13; no. 9; pp. e3137 - n/a
• Main Authors: Lee, Se A, Chin, Susie, Jung, Shin, Lee, Kyung-Hwa, Moon, Kyung-Sub, Lee, Jong Dae
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-09-2023; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Apoptosis; Cell death; Immune system; immunochemistry; Ligands; Lymphocytes; neuroma acoustic; Original; Otolaryngology; Patients; Software; Tumors; tumor‐infiltrating; United States > US; lymphocytes; neuroma acoustic; immunochemistry; tumor-infiltrating
• ISSN: 2162-3279; 2162-3279
• DOI: 10.1002/brb3.3137

The association between programed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in vestibular schwannoma (VS) has been investigated in a few studies. These published studies report a difference in the PD-L1 positivity rate in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. We examined PD-L1 expression and lymphocyte infiltration in patients with VS who had undergone surgical resection and investigated the association between PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological features.
The expression of PD-L1, CD8, and Ki-67 in 40 VS tissue specimens was investigated using immunohistochemistry, and a clinical review of the patients was performed.
Of the 40 VS samples, 23 (57.5%) were positive for PD-L1 and 22 (55%) were positive for CD8. No significant differences in age, tumor size, pure-tone audiometry, speech discrimination, or Ki-67 expression were observed between patients in the PD-L1-positive and PD-L1-negative groups. A higher level of CD8-positive cell infiltration was observed in PD-L1-positive tumors than in PD-L1-negative tumors.
We demonstrated that PD-L1 was expressed in VS tissues. Although no correlation was identified between clinical characteristics and PD-L1 expression, the association between PD-L1 and CD8 was confirmed. Thus, additional research on targeting PD-L1 is necessary to improve immunotherapy for VS in the future.