Composition of the immune microenvironment differs between carcinomas metastatic to the lungs and primary lung carcinomas

Lungs are among the most common sites for development of both primary and metastatic carcinomas. Tumor cells expression (TC) of PD-L1 is an important predictor of the of response to immune check-point inhibition in NSCLC, while the composition of the immune cells (IC) in the tumor microenvironment including PD-L1 + cells is believed to predict responses in tumors of some other primary sites. Total mutational load (TML) and microsatellite instability (MSI) also play a role in response to the immune checkpoint blockade. We investigated immune microenvironment characteristics (PD-1, PD-L1, CD8) of 257 lung biopsies including 81 primary (NSCLC) and 176 metastatic tumors to the lungs. TML and MSI were calculated from massively parallel sequencing (592-gene panel). TC expression of PD-L1 was more common in NSCLC than in metastatic carcinomas (28% vs. 10%, p = 0.009), while PD-L1-positive IC were present at relevant percentages (1-5%) exclusively in metastatic carcinomas (31% IC positive vs. 0%, p < 0.001). Metastatic carcinomas carried significantly lower TML in comparison with the NSCLCs (6.6 mutations on average vs. 10, p = 0.01). All primary NSCLC were microsatellite stable, and only 2 metastatic carcinomas exhibited MSI-H status. The number of PD-1 + and CD8 + tumor infiltrating lymphocytes did not differ significantly between the primary and metastatic carcinomas. Our study revealed significant differences in tumor immune microenvironment (PD-L1 in IC and TC), and its relationship to TML between NSCLC and metastatic cancers. These differences could determine the choice of a predictive biomarker test and subsequently effect(s) of the immune therapy treatments in various advanced cancers.