Clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of CMTM6 and PD-L1 expression in cervical squamous cell carcinoma

It has been demonstrated that interfering with the expression of chemokine-like factor-like MARVEL transmembrane domain-containing family member 6 (CMTM6) results in impaired programmed death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein expression in human tumor cells. PD-L1 relies on CMTM6 to inhibit T cell responses and promote tumor cell proliferation. The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression of CMTM6 and PD-L1 in cervical cancer and their clinical significance. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of CMTM6 and PD-L1 in 50 normal cervical tissues and 102 cervical cancer tissue samples. The results showed that CMTM6 and PD-L1 expression was associated with clinical staging, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and tumor differentiation. In addition, there was a positive association between the expression of CMTM6 and that of PD-L1 in cervical cancer tissue. Survival analysis results showed that high expression of CMTM6 and PD-L1 was positively correlated with poor prognosis in patients. Univariate analysis showed that lymph node metastasis was associated with the prognosis of cervical cancer patients. Cox analysis indicated that PD-L1 is a risk factor affecting the survival time of cervical cancer patients. In conclusion, the expression of CMTM6 and PD-L1 is elevated in cervical cancer tissue and closely related to poor prognosis. Therefore, CMTM6 and PD-L1 may be new molecular targets for the treatment of cervical cancer.