BACKGROUND: Studies evaluating the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) for endometrial cancer (EC) are limited. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors as monotherapy for EC by conducting a meta-analysis. The predictive significance of MMR status, a biomarker for ICI response, also required further investigation.
METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in English databases until September 2023. The analysis included objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), adverse events (AEs), and odds ratios (OR), along with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI).
RESULTS: There were twelve trials totaling 685 individuals. PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor monotherapy resulted in an ORR for 34% (95% CI = 24-44%) of the pooled EC patients. Subgroup analysis revealed a significantly higher ORR in dMMR EC (45%) compared to pMMR EC (8%), with an OR of 6.36 (95% CI = 3.64-11.13). The overall DCR was 42%, with dMMR EC at 51% and pMMR EC at 30% (OR = 2.61, 95% CI = 1.69-4.05). Grade three or higher adverse events (AEs) occurred in 15% of cases (95% CI = 9-24%) of the pooled incidence of AEs, which was 68% (95% CI = 65-72%).
CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis provides significant evidence for the effectiveness of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors as monotherapy for EC. Notably, dMMR EC patients demonstrated superior treatment efficacy with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor immunotherapy. Further research is required to explore subclassifications of EC based on dMMR molecular subtypes, enabling improved treatment strategies and outcomes for EC patients.

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UNASSIGNED: Although the tumors are often easily detected, a considerable number of patients with female urethral carcinoma are diagnosed in an advance stage. Thus, no evidence-based therapeutic approach has been established. We herein report our experience in the treatment of three female patients with urethral carcinoma. We also examined the expression of PD-L1 and CTLA-4.
UNASSIGNED: Three female patients pathologically diagnosed with urethral carcinoma, including urothelial carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma, between 2013 and 2017 were analyzed in this study. Two patients underwent urethrectomy with cystostomy. Immunohistochemistry was performed to assess the levels of PD-L1 and CTLA-4 expression in patients with urethral carcinoma. Eleven control cases of urethral carcinoma tissue were also stained.
UNASSIGNED: This study revealed the expression of PD-L1 and CTLA-4 in female urethral carcinomas.

Immunocheckpoint inhibitors (ICIs) which target PD-1 and CTLA-4 have dramatically changed the history of non-small-cell lung cancer treatment. Multiple biomarkers especially tumor mutational burden (TMB) have been raised to be potential predictors of response to ICIs. However, great value of TMB has been observed in patients who receive ICIs monotherapy instead of ICIs combination therapy from latest exploratory studies. Thus, the innovative concept of TMB needs to be identified. This study uncovers specific aspects of TMB including signatures of TMB, factors related with variation, racial differences, heterogeneity between tissue TMB and blood-based TMB. Additionally, more and more factors are found valuable in clinical trials, suggesting that more markers should be further investigated as interesting candidates for response prediction beyond TMB.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare but highly aggressive neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin, with frequent recurrences, metastasis, and a high mortality rate. For primary or locoregional MCC, a wide local excision followed by radiation therapy is the basic treatment modality for preventing recurrence at the primary site and involved lymph nodes. Cytotoxic chemotherapy has been commonly used to treat patients with metastatic MCC, but not as an adjuvant therapy for high-risk resected MCC. Although MCC is often chemotherapy-sensitive in the first-line setting, responses are rarely durable and most patients subsequently relapse and develop metastasis. Treatment with checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) has shown a major advancement in the treatment of advanced MCC. Systemic therapy against programmed cell death-1/programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-1/PD-L1) is associated with a high objective response rate (ORR), prolonged durable responses, and good tolerability in advanced-stage MCC. CPIs are now included in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for the treatment of patients with metastatic MCC. Multiple clinical trials of CPIs administered as monotherapy or in combination with other agents or modalities, including the adjuvant setting, are ongoing. Immunotherapy offers a promising future for patients with MCC. In this review, we present an overview of emerging data on immunotherapy, especially CPIs of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, for patients with advanced MCC.