The interplay between programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression and human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes in cervical carcinomas: findings of a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital.

Introduction: cervical cancer is primarily driven by high-risk human papillomavirus infections. It is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women globally. The emergence of immunotherapeutic approaches, particularly programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors, has shown promise in various cancers. This study aims to investigate the correlation between PD-L1 expression and HPV status in cervical carcinoma samples from a Nigerian tertiary hospital.

Methods: the study was conducted in the Department of Pathology of our hospital. The study materials were 101 cases of archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks that met the study criteria recruited retrospectively from January 2012 to December 2016. Immunohistochemistry for PD-L1 was done and real time PCR for HPV DNA was done using CFX96. The data were then analyzed using SPSS version 23. P < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: high-risk HPV detection rate was 51%. The two most common genotypes were HPV 16 (84.3%) and HPV 35 (17.6%). The predominant infections were single genotypes occurring in 80.4% of the cases. There was no correlation of HPV status with PD-L1, histological grade or type of cervical carcinoma. High-risk HPV did not show any distribution pattern with age groups of patients.

Conclusion: human papillomavirus 16 is the most predominant cause of cervical carcinoma. There are some environmental variations in the frequency of other genotypes with HPV 35 being relatively more common than HPV 18 in this study. Programmed death ligand-1 was positive in 47% of the cases but did not show any correlation with the HPV infection status.