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

Our plain-English summary of Response to Comment on "Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy", by M.G. White, O.S. Eng (British Journal of Cancer, 2021).

The study

• Authors: M.G. White, O.S. Eng
• Journal: British Journal of Cancer
• Published: 2021;124(6):1179-1180
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 6 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Summary of the article

In this letter, the authors of a study on heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma treated with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy replied to a letter from Dr. Yang and colleagues commenting on that study. They explained that leaving out the sarcomatoid subtype was not intentional. It reflected the fact that patients with this subtype had not been treated surgically during the study period. They noted that this subtype is known to be more aggressive and to be a poor prognostic factor even with cytoreductive surgery. They agreed that T-cell infiltrates are of interest as a possible marker of responsiveness. They said their group planned future work on B-cells and tertiary lymphoid structures in mesothelioma, which have been linked to better responses to immunotherapy in melanoma, sarcoma and renal cell carcinoma. They welcomed Yang and colleagues' suggestion to use tumour suppressor gene inactivation and tumour microenvironment differences to select patients most likely to respond to immune checkpoint blockade. They described selection by histology augmented by molecular profiling as a hopeful future direction. However, they cautioned that those observations were made in pleural rather than peritoneal mesothelioma, and that the immune microenvironment of the peritoneum remains poorly understood. They concluded that, because mesothelioma is rare, improving care often requires multi-institutional and international collaboration.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This is a short reply letter, not a research study, and it reports no new data. The authors were answering a letter from Dr. Yang and colleagues about the authors' earlier study on variation in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma in patients given systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy. The authors wrote that leaving out the sarcomatoid subtype was not intentional; it happened because patients with that subtype were not surgically treated during the study period. They said that future work would look at immune features around tumours, with particular interest in B-cells. They described choosing treatment by tumour type plus molecular profiling as a hopeful future direction, and wrote that patient selection is critical to good outcomes with immune checkpoint blockade. They cautioned that the observations raised by Yang and colleagues were made in pleural rather than peritoneal mesothelioma, and that the immune environment of the peritoneum remains poorly understood. The authors concluded that, because mesothelioma is rare, changes in treatment often require multi-institutional efforts. The letter does not discuss asbestos.

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: correspondence (reply letter to a comment on the authors' earlier article); no new data
• Main results:
  • The authors stated that the sarcomatoid subtype was left out of their earlier study because those patients had not been surgically treated during the study period.
  • The authors stated a particular interest in studying the potential role of B-cells in mesothelioma in future work.
  • The authors described selecting therapy by histology combined with molecular profiling as a hopeful future direction.
  • The authors wrote that patient selection is critical to optimise outcomes for patients who can benefit from immune checkpoint blockade.
  • The authors cautioned that the observations raised by Yang and colleagues were made in pleural, not peritoneal, mesothelioma, and that the immune environment of the peritoneum remains poorly understood.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, given the low incidence of mesothelioma, treatment changes often require multi-institutional efforts.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors acknowledged that their earlier study did not include the sarcomatoid subtype, and said this omission was not intentional.

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, Sarcomatoid, Cytoreductive Surgery, Mesothelioma, Immunotherapy, Sarcoma.

Related studies

• Comment on "Heterogeneity in PD-L1 expression in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with systemic or intraperitoneal chemotherapy" — H. Yang, S.R.R. Hall, et al. (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)
• Retrospective response analysis of BAP1 expression to predict the clinical activity of systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy in mesothelioma — N. Kumar, D. Alrifai, et al. (2019)

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