Document Type
Journal Article
Publisher
Bio Med
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
25623
Funders
Queensland Centre for Head and Neck funded by Atlantic Philanthropies
Queensland Government
Abstract
Background
Blockade of the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway is emerging as a promising immunotherapeutic approach for the management and treatment of head and neck cancer patients who do not respond to 1st/2nd line therapy. However, as checkpoint inhibitors are cost intensive, identifying patients who would most likely benefit from anti PD-L1 therapy is required. Developing a non-invasive technique would be of major benefit to the patient and to the health care system.
Case presentation
We report the case of a 56 year old man affected by a supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). A CT scan showed a 20 mm right jugulodigastric node and suspicious lung lesions. The lung lesion was biopsied and confirmed to be consistent with SCC. The patient was offered palliative chemotherapy. At the time of presentation, a blood sample was taken for circulating tumour cell (CTC) analysis. The dissemination of cancer was confirmed by the detection of CTCs in the peripheral blood of the patient, measured by the CellSearch System (Janssen Diagnostics). Using marker-independent, low-shear spiral microfluidic technology combined with immunocytochemistry, CTC clusters were found in this patient at the same time point, expressing PD-L1.
Conclusion
This report highlights the potential use of CTCs to identify patients which might respond to anti PD-L1 therapy.
DOI
10.1186/s12885-017-3316-3
Access Rights
The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Kulasinghe, A., Perry, C., Kenny, L., Warkiani, M. E., Nelson, C., & Punyadeera, C. (2017). PD-L1 expressing circulating tumour cells in head and neck cancers. BMC cancer, 17(1), Article 333.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-017-3316-3