Dataset related to article "Independent expression of circulating and tissue levels of PD-L1: correlation of clusters with tumor metabolism and outcome in patients with non-small cell lung cancer."

<p>PURPOSE:</p> <p>To evaluate the clinical-pathological and prognostic significance of the circulating PD-L1 level in patients with surgically treated NSCLC, by combining data for PD-L1 expression with other immune-related markers and tumor metabolism.</p> <p>METHODS:</p> <p>Overall, 40 patients with resected NSCLC (stage Ia-IIIa) who had preoperative blood storage and underwent staging PET/CT were enrolled for the study. In all cases, we determined plasma levels of PD-L1 (pg/ml), immune-reactive areas (IRA&nbsp;%) covered by CD3, CD68, CD20, CD8, PD-1, and PD-L1 in the tumor specimen, and metabolic parameters on PET, i.e., SUV_max, SUV_peak, metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG). Variables were statistically analyzed to establish their association with disease-free survival (DFS).</p> <p>RESULTS:</p> <p>The circulating levels of PD-L1 in the bloodstream could be determined in 38/40 (95%) samples. The mean and median expression levels were 34.86&nbsp;pg/ml and 24.83&nbsp;pg/ml, respectively. We did not find any statistically significant correlation between circulating PD-L1 and tissue expression of PD-L1/PD-1. Some mild degree of positive correlation was determined between tissue PD-L1 and SUV_max (&rho;&thinsp;=&amp;thinsp;0.390; p&thinsp;=&amp;thinsp;0.0148). Hierarchical clustering combining circulating, tissue, and metabolic parameters identified clusters with high metabolic tumor burden or high expression of plasma PD-L1 levels (Z score&thinsp;&ge;&thinsp;2) as having a poor DFS (p&thinsp;=&amp;thinsp;0.033). The multivariate analysis detected stage and metabolism (i.e., SUV_max and SUV_peak) as independent prognostic factors for DFS.</p> <p>CONCLUSION:</p> <p>Plasma levels of PD-L1 are independent of the expression of PD-1/PD-L1 in NSCLC tumor tissue and, when combined with other clinical-pathological parameters, allow for the identification of clusters with different outcomes.</p>