Feasibility of Endobronchial Ultrasound Guided Miniforceps Biopsy for PD‐L1 Expression and Quantitative Tissue Analysis

ABSTRACT Background Testing for targeting programmed death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) is standard of care for patients with newly diagnosed non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) but is only approved for use with core biopsy specimens. Endobronchial ultrasound guided miniforceps biopsy (EBUS‐MFB) is an approach t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Max T. Wayne, Nathaniel G. Moulton, Cody Weimholt, Praveen Chenna, Alexander C. Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-01-01
Series:Thoracic Cancer
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1111/1759-7714.15502
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Summary:ABSTRACT Background Testing for targeting programmed death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) is standard of care for patients with newly diagnosed non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) but is only approved for use with core biopsy specimens. Endobronchial ultrasound guided miniforceps biopsy (EBUS‐MFB) is an approach to obtain core biopsy material but data assessing the ability of EBUS‐MFB to adequately test for PD‐L1 is lacking. We evaluate the feasibility of EBUS‐MFB to acquire adequate tissue for PD‐L1 testing and look to compare the quality of specimens between EBUS‐MFB and endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS‐TBNA) using a standard method of tissue analysis. Methods Twenty patients with suspected non‐small cell lung cancer undergoing bronchoscopy were recruited for enrollment. For each patient with NSCLC diagnosed on rapid onsite pathology with EBUS‐TBNA, EBUS‐MFB was performed. PD‐L1 immunostaining was completed to assess for adequacy. A comparison of tissue collection was performed using the total surface area measured by digital imaging. Results Among 20 patients, 65% were male with a mean age of 66 years with a total procedure time of 50 min and an average of 14 biopsy passes per procedure. 15 (75%) patients were diagnosed with NSCLC, and PD‐L1 analysis was successfully performed in 12 of the 15 (80%). The mean total tissue area obtained by the MFB technique was 9.757 mm2 compared to 6.941 mm2 with TBNA (p = 0.427). Conclusion In this feasibility study, EBUS‐MFB was successful in performing PD‐L1 testing in 80% of patients with NSCLC.
ISSN:1759-7706
1759-7714