PD-L1 expression is a favorable prognostic factor in early stage non-small cell carcinoma.

Objectives: Immune checkpoint blockade using inhibitors of programmed death-1 have shown promise in early phase clinical trials in NSCLC and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumoral expression could potentially be a useful predictive marker. Data reporting the prevalence of PD-L1 expression in NSCLC and clinicopathologic associations is very limited. We sought to determine the frequency of PD-L1 expression in NSCLC and investigate associations with clinicopathologic features and patient outcome.

Testing for ALK rearrangement in lung adenocarcinoma: a multicenter comparison of immunohistochemistry and fluorescent in situ hybridization.

Rearrangements of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) define a molecular subgroup of tumors characterized clinically by sensitivity to ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as crizotinib. Although ALK rearrangements may be detected by reverse transcriptase-PCR, immunohistochemistry or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), the optimal clinical strategy for identifying ALK rearrangements in clinical samples remains to be determined. We evaluated immunohistochemistry using three different antibodies (ALK1, 5A4 and D5F3 clones) to detect ALK rearrangements and compared those with FISH.