Penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) bears poor prognosis due to its rarity and limited treatment options, especially after failure of standard treatments. Effective therapeutic options were desperately needed.
We report a recurrent metastatic PSCC patient with positive programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression (≥10%) and tumor mutation burden (TMB) of 8.87 (Muts/Mb) who obtained significant response to immunotherapy, with progression-free survival (PFS) exceeding 10 months.
This is the first case presenting remarkable response to immunotherapy in a Chinese PSCC patient. The remarkable response might be associated with PD-L1 expression, indicating that PD-L1 expression could be a promising biomarker for immunotherapy in PSCC. TMB ranking may also contribute to patient selection. However, large clinical trials are needed to validate these notions.
OncoTargets and therapy. 2020 Apr 21*** epublish ***
Xiangyu Su, Jing Zhang, Chenchun Fu, Mingzhe Xiao, Cailian Wang
Department of Oncology, Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China., Department of Oncology, The Second People's Hospital of Taizhou City, Taizhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China., The Medical Department, 3D Medicines Inc., Shanghai, People's Republic of China.