Do programmed death 1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1) play a role in patients with non-clear cell renal cell carcinoma?

Clinical trials targeting programmed death 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 (PD-L1) for metastatic renal cell cancer (RCC) are ongoing. The aim of this study is to validate their roles as prognostic markers in non-clear cell (non-cc) RCC. Sixty-four non-cc RCC tissue specimens were collected from patients undergoing renal tumor surgery. Expressions of biomarkers were assessed using immunohistochemistry and compared with clinical characteristics. Survival analyses were performed with a median follow-up of 77.5 (range: 0–176) months. No significant correlations were found for PD-1+ tumor-infiltrating mononuclear cells (TIMC) or PD-L1+ expression and clinical attributes in patients with non-cc RCC. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed no differences in 5- and 10-year cancer-specific survival (CSS) for PD-1− TIMC compared to PD-1+ TIMC (71.4 and 63 % versus 72.2 and 61.9 %; p = 0.88). Intratumoral expression of PD-L1 did not appear to influence the 5- and 10-year CSS significantly, even though a trend was identified (68 and 53.6 % versus 80.1 and 75.7 %; p = 0.08). In multivariate analysis, neither PD-1+ TIMC nor intratumoral PD-L1+ expression proved to be independent predictors of CSS (p = 0.99 and p = 0.68, respectively). Our study demonstrates that PD-1+ TIMC and intratumoral PD-L1+ expression did not significantly impact tumor aggressiveness or clinical outcome in non-ccRCC specimens. Due to rare incidence of non-cc RCC in particular according to PD-L1 expression, further analyzes are warranted.