# 89 Zr-atezolizumab imaging as a non-invasive approach to assess clinical response to PD-L1 blockade in cancer

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-bensch-nat-med/  
OnCo record `paper-bensch-nat-med` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one technology page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 30478423 and published in Nature Medicine; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Programmed cell death protein-1/ligand-1 (PD-1/PD-L1) blockade is effective in a subset of patients with several tumor types, but predicting patient benefit using approved diagnostics is inexact, as some patients with PD-L1-negative tumors also show clinical benefit 1,2. Moreover, all biopsy-based tests are subject to the errors and limitations of invasive tissue collection 3-11. Preclinical studies of positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging with antibodies to PD-L1 suggested that this imaging method might be an approach to selecting patients 12,13. Such a technique, however, requires substantial clinical development and validation. Here we present the initial results from a first-in-human study to assess the feasibility of imaging with zirconium-89-labeled atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1), including biodistribution, and secondly test its potential to predict response to PD-L1 blockade (ClinicalTrials.gov identifiers NCT02453984 and NCT02478099). We imaged 22 patients across three tumor types before the start of atezolizumab therapy. The PET signal, a function of tracer exposure and target expression, was high in lymphoid tissues and at sites of inflammation. In tumors, uptake was generally high but heterogeneous, varying within and among lesions, patients, and tumor types. Intriguingly, clinical responses in our patients were better correlated with pretreatment PET signal than with immunohistochemistry- or RNA-sequencing-based predictive biomarkers, encouraging further development of molecular PET imaging for assessment of PD-L1 status and clinical response prediction.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 30478423 (DOI 10.1038/s41591-018-0255-8). Matched by DOI alone: one technology page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Nature Medicine
- Year: 2018
- DOI: 10.1038/s41591-018-0255-8
- Authors: Bensch F, van der Veen EL, Lub-de Hooge MN, et al.
- What it means: One technology page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- Nat Med 2018: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0255-8
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30478423/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/30478423

## Connected records

- technologies: [Immuno-PET](https://onco.cc/technologies/immuno-pet/)
- journals: [Nature Medicine](https://onco.cc/journals/nature-medicine/)

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