Stomach cancer. Clinical significance of the expression of key components of PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint

Abstract

Stomach cancer is one of the most common tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. In Russia, stomach cancer is ranked fourth in incidence among malignancies and gives ground for lung, breast and colon cancers. Although the success of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors application in clinical practice has been proven in cases of many forms of malignancies, the advantages of application of these types of drugs in cases of stomach cancer has not yet been determined. The purpose of this review is to analyze modern studies concerning the clinical significance of PD-1 and PD-L1 expression in stomach tumors and to find the prospects of immunotherapy these tumors. The large number of studies are currently being described, concerning the analysis of the expression of PD-1, PD-L1 levels in tumor cells and soluble forms of these proteins sPD-1 and sPD-L1 in the serum in patients with stomach cancer. However, their clinical significance is unclear, and in many cases the predictive role of PD-L1 expression for the efficacy of immunotherapy is not yet clearly defined. Further accumulation of knowledge in this area can help to improve the efficacy of existing immunotherapy methods and to develop new predictive criteria.

Keywords

• stomach cancer
• expression
• pd-1
• pd-l1
• spd-1
• spd-l1