Expression and prognosis of inducible T‐cell co‐stimulator and its ligand in Chinese stage I–III lung adenocarcinoma patients

BACKGROUND: Immunotherapy has become the fastest‐adopting treatment paradigm for lung cancer with improved survival. By binding with its ligand (inducible T‐cell co‐stimulator and its ligand [ICOSL]), an inducible T‐cell co‐stimulator (ICOS) could contribute to reversing immunosuppression and improving immune response and thus be a potential target for cancer immunotherapy. METHODS: We selected 54 formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded tumor tissues from cases with stage I–III lung adenocarcinoma cancer. Immunohistochemical expression of ICOS and ICOSL was evaluated. The correlation with clinical parameters in Chinese patients was also compared with TCGA results. RESULTS: The positive rates of ICOS and ICOSL were 68% and 81.5%, respectively, in lung tumor tissues. Of these, 9 cases had a low expression of ICOS, and 22 cases had a high expression of ICOS; ICOSL expression was low in 20 cases and high in 24 cases. According to the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (8th edition), phase I lesions were detected in 21 cases, phase II lesions in 15 cases, and phase III lesions in 18 cases. The median survival time of all patients was 44.5 months, and the median disease‐free survival was 32 months. Univariate analysis showed that the factors significantly associated with overall survival were tumor size, regional lymph node involvement, stage, and expression level of ICOS/ICOSL. Survival analysis using log‐rank test indicated that the lower ICOS+ cell infiltration may predict poor prognosis, whereas lower ICOSL protein expression may be associated with better prognosis, but ICOSL data need further validation in larger samples due to inconsistency in TCGA mRNA prediction. CONCLUSION: ICOS/ICOSL might be associated with prognosis of lung cancer, and ICOS and its ligand may be potential therapeutic targets in non‐small cell lung cancer.