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Markus Eckstein: A huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer

Markus Eckstein/LinkedIn

Oct 17, 2024, 16:48

Markus Eckstein: A huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer

Markus Eckstein, Senior Physician/Pathologist and Clinician Scientist at the University Hospital Erlangen, shared a post on X by Annals of Oncology, adding:

“This is a huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer! (link)

in longitudinal samples latest/proximal PD-L1 status before ICI is predictive but not PD-L1 status in older samples.
Same applies for TMB!

Why is this important?

Tissue sampling time point and location matters, but tissue collection strategy in clinical trials is often shady!
Proper tissue strategies, I.e. including latest tissue ideally from distant metastasis leads to reliability of biomarkers!
Thus, we need more sophisticated and transparent tissue and biomarker strategies in clinical trials.”

Quoting Annals of Oncology’s post about the recent paper:

“Among 402 PD-L1 and 413 TMB sample pairs, PD-L1 concordance was moderate, but TMB concordance was high. About 20% of cases had large PD-L1 variations, and a TPS change of 50% or more(≥+50% in 9.7% and ≤-50% in 8.0%). Time between biopsies affected PD-L1 but not TMB concordance.

Markus Eckstein: A huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer

Acquired copy no. loss of CD274 (PD-L1), PDCD1LG2 (PD-L2), and JAK2, and intervening ICI were associated with PD-L1 low. In patients with multiple PD-L1 assessments pre ICI, patients with PD-L1 ≥1% in all samples, compared to patients with at least one PD-L1 <1% and another PD-L1 ≥1%, had high ORR and PFS.

Markus Eckstein: A huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer

In patients with multiple TMB assessments pre ICI, patients with TMB ≥10 mut/Mb at most recent assessment, compared to patients with TMB <10 mut/Mb, had longer PFS and OS; no differences were observed when patients were categorized using the oldest TMB assessment to ICI therapy.”

Markus Eckstein: A huge paper corroborating results that we published in European Urology for urothelial cancer