Korean J Transplant.  2020 Dec;34(Supple 1):S165. 10.4285/ATW2020.PO-1105.

Association between pretransplant serum soluble programmed death protein 1 level and prognosis following liver transplantation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

• Oh K
• Hwang S
• Ahn CS
• Kim KH
• Moon DB
• Ha TY
• Song GW
• Jung DH
• Lee KJ
• Tak E

• KMID: 2509355
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4285/ATW2020.PO-1105

Abstract

Background
The study aimed to assess the prognostic influence of pretransplant serum soluble programmed death protein 1 (sPD-1) in patients undergoing liver transplantation (LT) for treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Methods
Data from 229 patients with HCC who underwent living donor LT between January 2010 and December 2015 were retrospectively evaluated. Stored serum samples were used to evaluate sPD-1 concentrations.
Results
Tumor recurrence, overall survival, and HCC-specific survival rates were 25.5%, 94.3%, and 96.0% at 1 year; 40.8%, 78.2%, and 80.7% at 3 years; and 44.5%, 75.4%, and 77.9% at 5 years, respectively. Prognostic analysis using pretransplant serum sPD-1 with a cutoff of 93.6 µg/mL (median value of the study cohort) did not have significant prognostic influence on HCC recur- rence, HCC-specific patient survival and post-recurrence patient survival (P≥0.26). Prognostic analysis using sPD-1 with a cutoff of 300 µg/mL showed marginally higher tumor recurrence (P=0.069), similar HCC-specific patient survival (P=0.25) and higher post-recurrence patient survival (P=0.045). Multivariate analysis revealed that Milan criteria were prognostic for HCC recurrence and HCC-specific patient survival, but pretransplant sPD1 with a cutoff of 300 µg/mL did not become an independent prognostic factor.
Conclusions
The results of this study demonstrate that pretransplant serum sPD-1 may not have significant influences on posttransplant outcomes in patients with HCC, although there might be some potential prognostic influence from very high expression of serum sPD-1. Additional large-scale, multicenter studies and detailed mechanism studies are required to clarify the role of serum sPD-1 in LT recipients.