• Yaodong Zhu, Fangyuan Zhu, He Ba, Jie Chen, and Xiuliang Bian.
• Department of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine in Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Medical University of Anhui, Hefei, China.
• Eur. J. Clin. Invest. 2023 Feb 1; 53 (2): e13880e13880.

BackgroundHigh expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) has been related to good response to immunotherapy patients with gastric cancer (GC). However, the influence of Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection on PD-L1 expression in GC remains unknown. A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the association between HP infection and PD-L1 expression in GC.MethodsObservational studies that investigated the relationship between HP infection and PD-L1 expression in patients with GC were obtained by search electronic databases, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane's Library and Web of Science. A random-effect model incorporating the possible influence of between-study heterogeneity was used to pool the results.ResultsTen studies with 1870 patients with GC contributed to the meta-analysis. Pooled results showed that HP infection was significantly associated with the tumour expression of PD-L1 (odds ratio [OR]: 1.90, 95% confidence interval: 1.33-2.72, p < .001; I2  = 53%). Subgroup analyses showed that the association between HP infection and PD-L1 expression in GC was not significantly affected by sample size, methods for PD-L1 evaluation and quality score (p for subgroup analyses all >.05). However, a stronger association was observed in studies with higher prevalence of HP infection (≥35%, OR: 2.58) as compared with those with lower prevalence (<35%, OR: 1.45, p for subgroup difference = .04).ConclusionHelicobacter pylori infection in GC patients is associated with tumour expression of PD-L1, suggesting HP infection may be a predictor of good response to immunotherapy in GC.© 2022 Stichting European Society for Clinical Investigation Journal Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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