# Clinical relevance of PD-L1 expression in gallbladder cancer: a potential target for therapy

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-neyaz-pdl1-gallbladder-histopathology-2018/  
OnCo record `paper-neyaz-pdl1-gallbladder-histopathology-2018` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

In 174 Indian gallbladder cancers, about a quarter had PD-L1 on tumour cells and a quarter on immune cells, more so in higher-grade tumours, but PD-L1 did not predict survival.

## Summary

174 cases of gallbladder carcinoma were evaluated for PD-L1 expression with the SP263 clone on tissue microarrays, at cut-offs of 1%, 10% and 50% in tumour cells and in tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes, and correlated with clinicopathological characteristics and survival. Mean age was 49.9 years, the male to female ratio 1 to 2.9, and 73.6% presented with stage 3 or 4 disease.

Tumour cells expressed PD-L1 in 23.0% of cases and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes in 24.1%; at cut-offs of 10% and 50%, 14.9% and 7.5% of cases were positive. Tumour proportion score was associated with histological type, histological and nuclear grade, nodal metastasis, higher stage and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes. Paired lymph node metastases showed discordantly higher PD-L1 than primaries. Overall survival was not associated with PD-L1 expression (P = 0.546).

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Journal: Histopathology
- Year: 2018
- DOI: 10.1111/his.13669
- Authors: Neyaz A, Husain N, Kumari S, et al.
- Findings: PD-L1 on tumour cells in 23.0% at 1%, 14.9% at 10% and 7.5% at 50%; on immune cells in 24.1% (SP263).; Associated with histological type and grade, nuclear grade and nodal metastasis; higher in nodal metastases than primaries.; No association with overall survival (P = 0.546).
- What it means: The largest PD-L1 series from a high-incidence country; the one-in-four figure is the number quoted for gallbladder cancer, though the Western series with a different clone found fewer. No biliary approval uses PD-L1 to select patients.
- Caveats: Tissue microarrays sample a small core of heterogeneous tumours.; SP263 clone and tumour-cell scoring are not interchangeable with 22C3 CPS.

## Sources

- Neyaz et al., Histopathology 2018: PD-L1 (SP263) in 174 Indian gallbladder cancers: https://doi.org/10.1111/his.13669
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29882997/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Gallbladder cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/gallbladder/)
- targets: [PD-L1](https://onco.cc/targets/pdl1/)
- terms: [Immunohistochemistry (IHC)](https://onco.cc/terms/ihc/), [Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)](https://onco.cc/terms/tils/)
- biomarkers: [PD-L1 TPS (tumour proportion score)](https://onco.cc/biomarkers/pd-l1-tps/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/paper-neyaz-pdl1-gallbladder-histopathology-2018.json