PD-L1 expression between primary lung and LN metastasis in NSCLC
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Retrospective Evaluation of PD-L1 expression on primary non-small cell lung cancer samples and associated involved hilar or mediastinal lymph nodes (N1 or N2) (REPLICA).
IRAS ID
228790
Contact name
Eleni Karapanagiotou
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Merck Sharp and Dohme Ltd
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 30 days
Research summary
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, and divided into 2 major classes: non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer. Previously, treatment for advance stage NSCLC was limited to chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Therefore the introduction of targeted therapies represent additional options for patients. An important part of the immune system is its ability to tell the difference between normal cells in the body and those it sees as “foreign”. This lets the immune system attack the foreign cells while leaving the normal cells alone. It uses checkpoint to do this. Checkpoints are molecules on certain immune cells that need to be activated (or inactivated) to start an immune response. Cancer cells sometimes find ways to use these checkpoints to avoid being attacked by the immune system.
PD-1 is a checkpoint protein on immune cells called T cells. It normally acts as a type of “off switch” that helps keep the T cells from attacking other cells in the body. It does this when it attaches to PD-L1, a protein on some normal cells. When PD-1 binds to PD-L1 it basically tells the T cell to leave the other cell alone. Some cancer cells have large amounts of PD-L1, which helps them evade immune attack.
Drugs that target either PD-1 or PD-L1 can block this binding and boost the immune response against cancer cells.
In this retrospective study, samples from primary tumour and samples from lymph nodes from 500 patients with NSCLC will be collected from archives and analysed to quantify the PD-L1 expression.
The aim is to understand if there are differences in PD-L1 expression between primary tumour versus sites of spread. This may help predict the efficacy of certain molecular targeted therapies.
We predict to complete analysis of the samples within 6 months.REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NE/0167
Date of REC Opinion
29 May 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion