# Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung

Source: https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/  
OnCo record `lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung` (Cancer). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung is a rare lung cancer, seen mostly in East Asian non-smokers, in which cancer cells sit in a dense crowd of immune cells and usually carry the Epstein-Barr virus, like nasopharyngeal cancer. It is treated as a squamous lung cancer, and its high PD-L1 levels have made immunotherapy a natural choice.

## Summary

The 2021 WHO classification moved lymphoepithelial carcinoma from the large cell group into squamous cell carcinoma, on the strength of its squamous immunophenotype (Nicholson 2022). Histologically it is a poorly differentiated carcinoma with a heavy lymphocytic infiltrate, and in East Asian patients it is nearly always associated with Epstein-Barr virus. In 66 patients from Taiwan, PD-L1 was overexpressed in 75.8 percent of tumours and EGFR mutation found in 12.1 percent, with no KRAS, BRAF, ALK or ROS1 alterations (Chang 2015). Targeted sequencing of 27 Chinese cases found no classic lung driver apart from one ERBB2 amplification and one KRAS mutation, but mutations in epigenetic regulators in 78 percent (Modern Pathology 2020).

How it differs from its parent: it lacks the smoking-related mutational burden of ordinary squamous cell carcinoma, is virus-associated, and has a better reported prognosis in the series above; its biology is closer to nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which the corpus covers.

How common: no incidence figure is published.

Treatment: as squamous cell carcinoma of the lung by stage, with platinum chemotherapy and, given the PD-L1 findings, checkpoint inhibitors in advanced disease; the sources read are pathology series, not treatment trials, and none exists for the entity.

## Fields

- Kind: Cancer
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Also known as: Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of the lung; Pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma; LELC of the lung; EBV-associated lung carcinoma
- Tags: subtype-page; wave4; lung
- Group: lung
- Burden: Rare and concentrated in East Asia: the largest series in the sources read hold 66 patients (Chang 2015) and 29 patients (Modern Pathology 2020), both from China or Taiwan. No registry share exists.
- Subtypes: EBV-positive lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung (the usual form in East Asia); EBV-negative lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung
- Biomarkers: EBV-encoded RNA in situ hybridisation; PD-L1 (overexpressed in about three quarters); p40 positive, TTF-1 negative; Epigenetic regulator mutations (research)

## Sections of this record

The page is a hub with ten sections in reading order; large sections have their own page. The same plan as JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/sections.json

- Overview (on the hub): The TL;DR, the family this cancer belongs to, the organ, who gets it and what the state of the art is. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#overview
- What it is (on the hub): Anatomy, the subtypes and how they differ, how it is staged, and where advanced disease spreads. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#what-it-is [2 subtypes]
- Finding it (on the hub): How it shows itself, how it is confirmed, what screening exists, and the biomarkers clinicians test for. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#finding-it [4 biomarkers]
- Treating it (on the hub): The standard of care by setting, the medicines, surgery and radiotherapy named in it, and the regimens behind them. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#treating-it [1 setting]
- Evidence (on the hub): Trials recruiting now, the landmark trials, the key papers and what they mean, the latest literature, and the milestones year by year. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#evidence
- The science (on the hub): The molecular landscape: the targets and how often each appears, the pathways, the mechanics stages and the preclinical models. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#science [1 target]
- Where you are (own page): Cases by country, the UK and NHS pathway and other country lenses, and the expert centres with trials on record. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/where-you-are/
- Living with it (on the hub): The decisions you may face, the aids that walk through them, the warnings on record, the first sixty days and the questions to ask. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/#living-with-it [8 questions, 3 red cards]
- What is coming (own page): Everything in development, the open problems and what is being done about them, the roadmaps, and what changed on this record. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/coming/ [1 medicine]
- Data (own page): Every connected record, the notes, the JSON, Markdown and RDF twins, and where the record came from and when it was checked. https://onco.cc/cancers/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung/data/ [4 connected records]

## Standard of care

- All stages: Treated as squamous cell carcinoma of the lung; checkpoint inhibitors in advanced disease on the PD-L1 findings, without a dedicated trial. ([Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung](https://onco.cc/cancers/lung-squamous-cell-carcinoma/), [Pembrolizumab](https://onco.cc/drugs/pembrolizumab/))

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphoepithelioma-like_carcinoma
- Nicholson 2022, JTO: the 2021 WHO classification of lung tumours: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtho.2021.11.003
- Chang 2015, Lung Cancer: PD-L1 is highly expressed in 66 lung lymphoepithelioma-like carcinomas: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lungcan.2015.03.017
- Modern Pathology 2020: genomic profiles and PD-L1 expression of 29 primary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinomas of the lung: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41379-019-0391-9

## Connected records

- cancers: [Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the lung](https://onco.cc/cancers/basaloid-squamous-cell-carcinoma-lung/), [Nasopharyngeal carcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/nasopharyngeal/), [Non-small-cell lung cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/nsclc/), [Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung](https://onco.cc/cancers/lung-squamous-cell-carcinoma/)
- drugs: [Pembrolizumab](https://onco.cc/drugs/pembrolizumab/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/lymphoepithelial-carcinoma-lung.json