OncoTargets and Therapy (Apr 2020)
Recurrent Metastatic Penile Cancer Patient with Positive PD-L1 Expression Obtained Significant Benefit from Immunotherapy: A Case Report and Literature Review
Abstract
Xiangyu Su,1 Jing Zhang,2 Chenchun Fu,1 Mingzhe Xiao,3 Cailian Wang1 1Department of Oncology, Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Oncology, The Second People’s Hospital of Taizhou City, Taizhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 3The Medical Department, 3D Medicines Inc., Shanghai, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Cailian WangDepartment of Oncology, Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, 87 Dingjiaqiao, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected]: Penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) bears poor prognosis due to its rarity and limited treatment options, especially after failure of standard treatments. Effective therapeutic options were desperately needed.Case Presentation: We report a recurrent metastatic PSCC patient with positive programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression (≥ 10%) and tumor mutation burden (TMB) of 8.87 (Muts/Mb) who obtained significant response to immunotherapy, with progression-free survival (PFS) exceeding 10 months.Conclusion: This is the first case presenting remarkable response to immunotherapy in a Chinese PSCC patient. The remarkable response might be associated with PD-L1 expression, indicating that PD-L1 expression could be a promising biomarker for immunotherapy in PSCC. TMB ranking may also contribute to patient selection. However, large clinical trials are needed to validate these notions.Keywords: immunotherapy, PD-L1, biomarker, Penile squamous cell carcinoma, PSCC
