Differences in central versus local lab PD-L1 classification in the ALCHEMIST Alliance A151216 non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) study.

Abstract

8057 Background: The NCI Adjuvant Lung Cancer Enrichment Marker Identification and Sequencing Trials (ALCHEMIST) study tested resected stage II-IIIB(N2) NSCLC for targetable EGFR and ALK alterations and PD-L1 expression to screen patients for biomarker-driven adjuvant therapy trials (NCT02194738). Local lab results were requested when available for comparison to central lab results. Methods: We identified patients with both central and local PD-L1 results in the ALCHEMIST adjuvant immunotherapy study screening population. Discrepancies in tumor proportion score (TPS) between central and local PD-L1 were defined using prespecified cut-points (granular: <1%, 1-<5%, 5-<10%, 10-<20%, 20-<30%, 30-<40%, 40-<50%, 50-60%, 60-<70%, 70-<80%, 80-<90%, 90-<100%; clinical: <1%, 1-<50%, 50-100%). Large discrepancies were defined as ≥ 50 percentage point differences; for these cases, local PD-L1 and hematoxylin & eosin-stained slides were requested. These and all central slides were digitally scanned at 40X. Three expert pathologists reviewed the scanned slides in a blinded fashion. Differences between patient or tumor characteristics were assessed by Chi-square and Wilcoxon rank sum tests. Percent agreement was computed within and between the reviewers. Results: Central and local PD-L1 results were available for 497 patients. 177 cases (36%) had discrepancies that placed patients in different clinical TPS categories (<1%, 1-<50%, 50-100%). Among these, 43 cases had large TPS discrepancies; 14 had available local testing slides. 46 of the 320 cases without discrepancy were randomly selected as controls. No patient or tumor characteristics were associated with discrepancy, including tumor location, histology, grade or cancer stage (p > 0.05). Pairwise comparisons of TPS according to three pathologists re-reading the same scanned PD-L1 slides showed similar levels of disagreement in clinical TPS category whether there was initial discrepancy between central and local results (24%, 34%, and 23%; mean 27%) or not (33%, 30%, and 20%; mean 28%). Among the 14 cases with large initial discrepancies and local slides available, there was agreement in clinical TPS category when the anonymized central and local scanned slides were re-read by the pathologists in 54%, 38%, and 43% of cases, despite 100% non-agreement in initial reads. There were higher rates of agreement when the tested slides both originated from the same (100%) versus different (35%) blocks, when the same (48%) versus different (40%) PD-L1 antibodies were used, and when the cases were of non-squamous (52%) versus squamous (14%) cell carcinoma. Conclusions: There are substantial differences in PD-L1 TPS read by pathologists that can result in placement of patients in different categories commonly used for clinical management. These differences have clear implications in clinical trials and routine patient care.