UNASSIGNED: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents a highly aggressive breast cancer subtype, historically managed with chemotherapy regimens predominantly involving anthracyclines and taxanes, yielding unfavorable prognoses. This review endeavors to offer a thorough examination of the present state of treatment strategies for early stage triple negative breast cancer (eTNBC), with a particular emphasis on immunotherapy modalities, combination therapies, predictive biomarkers, and ongoing clinical trials. The principal aim of this review is to meticulously assess the available literature, ascertain significant discoveries, and engage in discussions regarding their potential implications for future research endeavors, clinical applications, and policy formulation.
UNASSIGNED: This review was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar databases, with the latest update performed in March 2023. The search strategy was designed to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the literature, with a focus on recent advancements.
UNASSIGNED: We critically assess the current eTNBC treatment landscape, covering efficacy and limitations of monotherapy, combination therapies, and predictive biomarkers. We highlight promising results from recent trials, address controversies surrounding chemotherapy, and explore optimal approaches for adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy (NAT). Insights into personalized treatment strategies, ongoing trials, and future perspectives are provided, advancing our understanding of therapeutic options for eTNBC.
UNASSIGNED: Through a comprehensive analysis of the literature, this review highlights the potential of immunotherapy, particularly in combination with chemotherapy, as a promising approach for treating eTNBC. However, further research is warranted to optimize treatment strategies, refine patient selection criteria, and identify reliable biomarkers for predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The findings of this review hold significant implications for future research, clinical practice, and policy-making, offering valuable insights into the current challenges and advancements in eTNBC treatment. Ultimately, this knowledge can contribute to improved patient outcomes, enhanced quality of life, and the development of more effective therapeutic approaches for eTNBC.

UNASSIGNED: Immune checkpoint inhibition has shed light on a new era in cancer therapy, and randomized clinical trials have demonstrated that a meaningful portion of the overall population of metastatic gastric cancer (GC) patients may derive clinical benefit from immunotherapy, which raises the relevance in identifying predictive biomarkers. Programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression has demonstrated a significant association between level of expression and the magnitude of benefit derived from immune checkpoint inhibition in GC. Nevertheless, this biomarker shows several pitfalls that must be considered in the therapeutic decision to incorporate immune checkpoint inhibition as the standard of care of GC, such as spatial and temporal heterogeneity, interobserver variability, immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay, and influence by chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
UNASSIGNED: In the present comprehensive review, we revised the main studies regarding PD-L1 evaluation in GC.
UNASSIGNED: Here we describe the molecular characteristics of the tumor microenvironment in GC, the obstacles in the interpretation of PD-L1 expression and present the data of the clinical trials that have evaluated the efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibition and the association with the biomarker expression, both in first-line and later lines of therapy.
UNASSIGNED: From the emerging predictive biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibition, PD-L1 has demonstrated a meaningful association between level of expression in tumor microenvironment and the magnitude of benefit derived from immune checkpoint inhibition in GC.

UNASSIGNED: Studies investigating the correlation between the expression of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) not receiving preoperative therapy have increased significantly, but conclusions remain inconclusive. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the association between clinical outcomes and expression of PD-L1 in ESCC patients without preoperative therapy.
UNASSIGNED: We conducted a comprehensive literature search using four databases up to May 2020. Quality assessment was carried out according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS). Hazard ratios (HRs) were used to analyze the association between PD-L1 expression with prognosis. Furthermore, we evaluated the correlation between PD-L1 and clinicopathological characteristics using odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
UNASSIGNED: Twenty studies (19 publications) comprising 3,677 patients were included in this meta-analysis. We found that the expression of PD-L1 was not related to overall survival (OS, HR: 1.16, 95% CI: 0.94-1.42, p = 0.16) or disease-free survival (DFS, HR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.66-1.10, p = 0.21) in ESCC. Furthermore, although PD-L1 expression was not significantly associated with sex, degree of differentiation, TNM stage, T stage, lymph node status, smoking, or alcohol use, the merged OR demonstrated that the expression of PD-L1 was higher in older patients compared to younger patients (OR: 1.40, 95% CI: 1.07-1.83, p = 0.01). No obvious publication bias was observed.
UNASSIGNED: Our present study illustrated that PD-L1 expression was not related to poor prognosis of ESCC patients not receiving preoperative therapy, albeit the association only showed a tendency for statistical significance. Notably, PD-L1 expression showed a significant association with age. This meta-analysis had several limitations; therefore, our results need to be verified through further large-scale and prospective studies.