Programmed death ligand-1/programmed death-1 inhibition therapy and programmed death ligand-1 expression in urothelial bladder carcinoma

Wei-Bo Yu; Jian-Yu Rao

doi:10.1016/j.cdtm.2019.08.003

Programmed death ligand-1/programmed death-1 inhibition therapy and programmed death ligand-1 expression in urothelial bladder carcinoma

Chronic Dis Transl Med. 2019 Sep 26;5(3):170-177. doi: 10.1016/j.cdtm.2019.08.003. eCollection 2019 Sep.

Authors

Wei-Bo Yu¹, Jian-Yu Rao¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine University of California at Los Angeles, 10833 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

Abstract

After two decades of unchanged paradigms, the treatment strategies for advanced urothelial bladder cancer have been revolutionized by emerging programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)/programmed death-1 (PD1) inhibition therapy. Increased evidence is demonstrating the efficacy of PD-L1/PD1 inhibition therapy in both second-line and first-line settings. However, the percentage of patients who benefit from anti-PD-L1/anti-PD1 therapy is still low. Many questions have been raised in the development of biomarker-driven approaches for disease classification and patient selection. In this perspective, we discuss PD-L1/PD1 expression in urothelial bladder carcinoma, review approved anti-PD-L1/anti-PD1 agents for bladder cancer treatment and current ongoing studies investigating combination treatment strategies, and explore PD-L1 expression status for the evaluation of bladder cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords: Bladder cancer; Immune checkpoint therapy; Programmed death-1; Programmed death-ligand 1; Urothelial carcinoma.