Obesity and lung cancer - is programmed death ligand-1 (PD-1L) expression a connection?

Introduction: In this retrospective study, the authors evaluated whether obesity -induced immunomodulation impacts the expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD -1L) in lung cancer cells. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed. The study included 67 patients. The data did not have a normal distribution. Results: For women, using ANOVA test (p = 0.050) with post -hoc analysis, a statistically significant difference in expression was found between women with overweight and women with normal weight (p = 0.040). Conclusions: Apart from the above, the authors did not find any statistically significant correlation between PD -1L expression on lung cancer cells and body mass index, either in the whole group or in histological subgroups.