Resumen
Non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for urinary bladder cancer (BC) are eagerly awaited, since these could improve patient?s quality of life and reduce resources and costs for the health care system. The PD-1/PD-L1 axis is an important immune escape mechanism for tumors, and both high tissue expression and soluble levels of PD-L1 have been shown to be associated with worse prognosis for patients with various tumor. The knowledge about soluble PD-L1 in body fluids such as serum and urine in patients with BC is sparse, and more studies are needed to investigate its role as a biomarker for the disease. In the present study, we show that high serum PD-L1 levels are associated with aggressive disease and development of metastatic disease in BC patients.