{"entity":{"id":"paper-pd-l1-urothelial-mol-cancer-ther-2015","kind":"paper","name":"PD-L1 Expression as a Predictive Biomarker in Cancer Immunotherapy","aka":[],"tldr":"Review on PD-L1 in Bladder & urothelial cancer, in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics (2015), one of the most cited Europe PMC records with PD-L1 in its title.","summary":"The resurgence of cancer immunotherapy stems from an improved understanding of the tumor microenvironment. The PD-1/PD-L1 axis is of particular interest, in light of promising data demonstrating a restoration of host immunity against tumors, with the prospect of durable remissions. Indeed, remarkable clinical responses have been seen in several different malignancies including, but not limited to, melanoma, lung, kidney, and bladder cancers. Even so, determining which patients derive benefit from PD-1/PD-L1-directed immunotherapy remains an important clinical question, particularly in light of the autoimmune toxicity of these agents. The use of PD-L1 (B7-H1) immunohistochemistry (IHC) as a predictive biomarker is confounded by multiple unresolved issues: variable detection antibodies, differing IHC cutoffs, tissue preparation, processing variability, primary versus metastatic biopsies, oncogenic versus induced PD-L1 expression, and staining of tumor versus immune cells. Emerging data suggest that patients whose tumors overexpress PD-L1 by IHC have improved clinical outcomes with anti-PD-1-directed therapy, but the presence of robust responses in some patients with low levels of expression of these markers complicates the issue of PD-L1 as an exclusionary predictive biomarker. An improved understanding of the host immune system and tumor microenvironment will better elucidate which patients derive benefit from these promising agents.\n\nIndexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 25695955 (DOI 10.1158/1535-7163.mct-14-0983). Its title names PD-L1 and its text names Bladder & urothelial cancer; PubMed types it as a review (Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Review). It was matched automatically to the idea \"Anchor a TGF-beta trap in the tumour stroma so it cannot act everywhere\" and no figure has been checked by an editor.","asOf":"2026-09-22","links":[{"label":"Mol Cancer Ther 2015","url":"https://doi.org/10.1158/1535-7163.mct-14-0983"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25695955/"},{"label":"Europe PMC","url":"https://europepmc.org/article/MED/25695955"}],"tags":["europepmc-ingest"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["molecular-cancer-therapeutics"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"Molecular Cancer Therapeutics","year":2015,"doi":"10.1158/1535-7163.mct-14-0983","pmid":"25695955","authors":"Patel SP, Kurzrock R","paperType":"review","findings":[],"whatItMeans":"One of the most cited reviews Europe PMC returns for PD-L1 in Bladder & urothelial cancer, so it is a natural first reading for anyone weighing the idea it is linked from. The record was linked automatically by title and abstract; read the abstract above and the paper itself before relying on any figure.","caveats":["Matched by PD-L1 in the title and Bladder & urothelial cancer in the title or abstract of the Europe PMC record; the summary reproduces the record's abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.","A review summarises other studies; the primary reports it cites are the evidence."]},"route":"/key-papers/paper-pd-l1-urothelial-mol-cancer-ther-2015/","neighbours":{"journal":[{"id":"molecular-cancer-therapeutics","kind":"journal","name":"Molecular Cancer Therapeutics","route":"/journals/molecular-cancer-therapeutics/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-bio2-tumour-anchored-tgfbeta-trap","kind":"idea","name":"Anchor a TGF-beta trap in the tumour stroma so it cannot act everywhere","route":"/ideas/idea-bio2-tumour-anchored-tgfbeta-trap/"}]}}