Prognostic Impact of Tumor Cell Programmed Death Ligand 1 Expression and Immune Cell Infiltration in NSCLC

Infiltration of T and B/plasma cells has been linked to NSCLC prognosis, but this has not been thoroughly investigated in relation to the expression of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1). Here, we determine the association of lymphocytes and PD-L1 with overall survival (OS) in two retrospective cohorts of operated NSCLC patients who were not treated with checkpoint inhibitors targeting the programmed death 1/PD-L1 axis. Moreover, we evaluate how PD-L1 positivity and clinicopathologic factors affect the prognostic association of lymphocytes.