Clinical treatment strategy and follow-up of lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma: a retrospective study

<b>Aim:</b> To investigate the clinical features, diagnosis and treatment of lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC).<b>Materials & methods:</b> The clinical data of 114 LELC patients were retrospectively analyzed.<b>Results:</b> Ninety-eight patients (86.0%) were Epstein-Barr virus-encoded small RNA (EBER) positive detected by situ hybridization. A 67.1% (51/76) patients had PD-L1 expression. The 5-year overall survival rate of EBER negative patients was 51.6% while the rate of positive patients was 84.8% (<i>p</i> = 0.015). The 5-year progression free survival rate of EBER negative patients was 40.2% while the rate of positive patients was 70.2% (<i>p</i> = 0.004).<b>Conclusion:</b> The progression of LELC is relatively slow and present a better prognosis. The occurrence of tumor is closely related to Epstein-Barr virus infection and PD-L1 is highly expressed in tumor cells.