EBUS-TNBA 22G samples: Comparison of PD-L1 expression between DAKO and BIOCARE.

Lung cancer is diagnosed at advanced stage due to lack of early disease symptoms. Currently we have several different biopsy techniques such as; radial endobronchial ultrasound, convex probe endobronchial ultrasound, electromagnetic navigation, ct guided biospy and transthoracic ultrasound biopsy. Novel therapies such as; immunotherapy is being used for non-small cell lung cancer in the everyday clinical practice as first and second line treatment. Programmed ligand-1 is essential in order to administer immunotherapy as first line treatment. Two thousands and two patients were included in our study where programmed ligand 1 was evaluated with DAKO technique and BIOCARE. Cell blocks were obtain with convex probe ebus-tbna 22G needle. The Deming regression between DAKO and BIOCARE clone revealed an amazingly strong linear relationship as the coefficient of determination indicated (R=0.999) and the variance ratio close to 1 (0.978), proving that both techniques can equally well be substituted for each other. The regression coefficient equals to 1 and the intercept hardly differs from 0 (0.936). In practice, this relationship permits adopting the economically affordable BIOCARE clone for further medical considerations. No statistical difference was observed between DAKO and BIOCARE, therefore we propose that both techniques can be used in order to investigate the expression of programmed ligand 1 with safety. PD-L1 expression was higher in the central mass instead of the lymphnodes.