Prognostic value of immune biomarkers in renal clear cell carcinoma

Abstract Objective: To analyze the expression of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and immune biomarkers to investigate their prognostic value in patients with Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Methods: This retrospective study enrolled 152 patients who were pathologically diagnosed with ccRCC between March 2010 and December 2018 at our institute. All tumor tissue sections were collected, and immunohistochemical staining was performed to calculate the expression of CD4, CD8, PD-1 and PD-L1. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic value of biomarkers on survival. The association of clinicopathological variables and biomarkers were tested by Chi-squared test, Fisher’s exact test or Student’s t-test. Results: In univariable analysis, increased tumor-infiltrating of CD8+ T cells and PD-L1 positive cells were associated with poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). In multiple analysis, increased CD8+T cells was an independent prognostic factor for poor DFS (p=0.009) and increased PD-L1 was independent prognostic factors for poor OS (p=0.030). Conclusion: This study showed some TILs and biomarkers can provide some prognostic data for clinical subsequent therapy for patients with ccRCC.