Prognostic significance ofPD-L1 expression in pancreatic cancer: evidence from anupdated meta-analysis.

Abstract

Recent studies revealed that programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression was associated with unfavorable prognosis in various solid tumors, but its clinical relevance for pancreatic cancer has not yet been well established. This meta-analysis summarizes thepotential prognostic value ofPD-L1 in pancreatic cancer. Aquantitative meta-analysis was performed by asystematic search ofdatabases including PubMed, EMBASE, Web ofScience, Cochrane library, Scopus and Ovid for eligible studies on theprognostic significance ofPD-L1 in pancreatic cancer patients. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate thestrength ofthelink between PD-L1 expression and clinical prognosis ofpatients. Seventeen eligible studies with 2669 patients were included in our study. Asignificant association was observed between PD-L1 abundance and poor overall survival (OS) ofpatients with pancreatic cancers, with apooled hazard ratio (HR) of1.902, 95% CI: 1.657-2.184. Sensitivity analysis confirmed thereliability ofour results. Subgroup analysis shows that differences in regions and detection methods ofPD-L1 did not change theoverall predictive value ofPD-L1 for poor prognosis in pancreatic cancer patients. This meta-analysis indicated that theexpression ofPD-L1 is associated with aworse OS in pancreatic cancer patients. Additionally, PD-L1 may act as a potential parameter for predicting poor prognosis and thus providing apromising target for anticancer therapy in pancreatic cancer.