Comment on "Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy"

Our plain-English summary of Comment on "Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy", by H. Yang, S.R.R. Hall, B. Sun, et al (British Journal of Cancer, 2021).

The study

• Authors: H. Yang, S.R.R. Hall, B. Sun, F. Yao
• Journal: British Journal of Cancer
• Published: 2021;124(6):1177-1178
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This article is a short letter (correspondence) commenting on an earlier study by White and colleagues. That study looked at levels of the protein PD-L1 in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma in patients who had systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy. PD-L1 is used to predict who may benefit from a type of immunotherapy. Most of the letter discussed other published research rather than reporting a new study. The authors' own new contribution was an analysis of existing protein data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The article labels this group the 'TCGA MPM cohort'; it included 61 cases. In those data, several proteins were significantly linked with PD-L1 levels, some positively and some negatively. These included proteins that act as brakes on a cell growth pathway called AKT-mTOR. The authors concluded that multiple factors, such as tumour histology (how the tumour looks under the microscope) and tumour-suppressor genes, may affect PD-L1 levels in MPM. The article defines MPM as malignant pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter (correspondence) commenting on a retrospective study by White et al., with a new analysis of existing public protein (reverse-phase protein array) data
• Who was studied: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) MPM cohort of 61 cases, with data downloaded from The Cancer Proteome Atlas database; the article defines MPM as malignant pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma
• Main results:
  • In the TCGA MPM cohort (n = 61), several proteins were significantly correlated, positively or negatively, with PD-L1 protein level
  • The correlated proteins particularly included proteins that negatively regulate the AKT-mTOR signalling pathway, such as PTEN, TUBERIN and 4EBP1_pT37T46
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that multiple factors, such as histology and tumour-suppressor genes, may affect PD-L1 expression in MPM

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma, Peritoneal mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: PD-L1, Peritoneal Mesothelioma, Chemotherapy.

Related studies

• Response to Comment on "Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy" — M.G. White, O.S. Eng (2021)
• Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy — M.G. White, J.J. Schulte, et al. (2021)
• Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma treated by cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy: is GLUT1 expression a major prognostic factor? A preliminary study — J. Hommell-Fontaine, S. Isaac, et al. (2013)
• Systemic chemotherapy with pemetrexed and cisplatin for malignant peritoneal mesothelioma: a single institution experience — G. Lainakis, F. Zagouri, et al. (2011)
• A single-center retrospective cohort study of perioperative systemic chemotherapy in diffuse malignant peritoneal mesothelioma — X. Wang, S. Katz, et al. (2022)
• Intraperitoneal chemotherapy for peritoneal surface malignancy: experience with 1,000 patients — E.A. Levine, J.H. Stewart, et al. (2014)

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