[Levels and Clinical Significances of sPD-1 and sPD-L1 in Peripheral Blood of Lymphoma Patients].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the levels of soluble programmed cell death protein 1 (sPD-1) and soluble programmed cell death ligand 1 (sPD-L1) in peripheral blood of lymphoma patients, and reveal their clinical significances.

METHODS: The peripheral blood specimens and clinical data of 64 newly diagnosed lymphoma patients and 30 healthy volunteers were collected. The levels of sPD-1 and sPD-L1 were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and their correlations with clinical characteristics of the patients including pathological type, stage, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level, T cell subsets were analyzed.

RESULTS: The levels of both sPD-1 and sPD-L1 in peripheral blood of lymphoma patients were higher than those of normal controls ( P <0.05). There were no significant differences in sPD-1 and sPD-L1 levels in peripheral blood between Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients. Different pathological subtypes of lymphoma had different levels of sPD-1. The level of sPD-1 in patients with T-cell lymphoma was higher than that in patients with B-cell lymphoma ( P =0.001). The levels of both sPD-1 and sPD-L1 in patients with Ann Arbor stage III and IV were higher than those in patients with stage I and II ( P <0.05). The level of sPD-L1 in patients with abnormally increased LDH was higher than that in patients with normal LDH ( P =0.001), but there was no significant difference in sPD-1 level. T cell subset analysis showed that the level of sPD-L1 was negatively correlated to CD4+ T cell content ( r =-0.265).

CONCLUSION: The levels of sPD-1 and sPD-L1 in peripheral blood of lymphoma patients are related to the pathological type, Ann Arbor stage, LDH content and T cell subsets, and will be potential biomarkers in predicting the prognosis of lymphoma.