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Abstract. Programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) is a potentially important tumor immunotherapy target. However, whether PD-L1 expression is associated with survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains controversial. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between PD-L1 expression and prognosis in NPC. The expression of PD-L1 was assessed in tumor specimens from 120 patients with NPC using immunohistochemistry. Staining was evaluated using the H-score method. The associations between PD-L1 expression and clinical characteristics and prognosis were analyzed. Overall, 78% of the patients had stage I-III and 22% had stage IV disease. The estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates for the entire cohort were 87.5 and 70.1%, respectively. PD-L1 expression was detected in 85 (71%) patients and was localized to the tumor cells. High tumor expression of PD-L1 (median H-score ≥5) was associated with significantly poorer OS (P=0.023) and DFS (P=0.002). Univariate analysis indicated that low PD-L1 expression was associated with better DFS compared with high PD-L1 expression (HR=0.163, 95% CI: 0.044-0.600, P=0.006 for DFS). Multivariate analysis revealed that T stage (HR=8.190, P=0.023) and PD-L1 expression level (HR=0.124, 95% CI: 0.031-0.509; P=0.001) served as independent prognostic factors for DFS. In conclusion, tumor PD-L1 expression was found to be a significant prognostic factor in NPC, and high PD-L1 expression may be of prognostic value for recurrence and metastasis following conventional treatments.

Aims Gastric cancer (GC) is often diagnosed at an advanced stage; inexpensive and valid biomarkers for GC are still unavailable. We aimed to evaluate the prognosis of the combination of pretreatment red cell distribution width (RDW) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in patients with GC. Methods A retrospective analysis from 103 GC patients who were diagnosed at our institution from 2012 to 2016 was performed. Both pretreatment RDW and NLR were calculated based on the recommended cutoff values of 13.4% and 2.755, respectively. Combined values of RDW and NLR (RDW + NLR) stratified patients into a score of 0 (RDW ≤ 13.4% and NLR ≤ 2.755), a score of 1 (RDW > 13.4% or NLR > 2.755), and a score of 2 (RDW > 13.4% and NLR > 2.755). Prognostic significances for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were assessed. Results Pretreatment RDW + NLR was a significantly independent prognostic factor for OS and PFS. Moreover, high RDW + NLR was strongly related to age, tumor location, TNM stage, CA125, and CA199. In a subgroup analysis for patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC), we observed that the level of RDW + NLR was markedly associated with OS and PFS. Conclusion Pretreatment RDW + NLR is a simple, inexpensive, and valid prognostic system to predict the survival in patients with GC, especially AGC.