Biomarkers of immunotherapy response in rectal adenocarcinoma treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

593Background: Immunotherapy (IO) in combination with chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in the neoadjuvant treatment for locally advanced rectal adenocarcinoma (RAC) is an area of active clinical research. There are no well-defined biomarkers in RAC predicting response to neoadjuvant therapy. Increase in tumor PD-L1 expression and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) has been observed after neoadjuvant CRT which potentially enhances response to IO. We report herein expression of PD-L1 and CD8+ TIL and other biomarkers of immune activation including CXCL9, TIM3 (HAVCR2), IDO1, IFNG, IL17RE, LAG3 and OX40 (TNFRSF4) pre and post neoadjuvant CRT in RAC. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 38 RAC patients from 2007-2016 treated with neoadjuvant CRT using 5FU based therapy. Pre and post CRT tissue samples were stained with VENTANA PD-L1 (SP263) rabbit monoclonal antibody to quantify PD-L1 expression. CD8+ TIL were recorded over one high power field (hpf) (40x objective) in the area of densest infiltrate. Additional bio...