Immune Phenotype Correlates With Survival in Patients With GBM Treated With Standard Temozolomide-based Therapy and Immunotherapy.

BACKGROUND/AIM: The need for more effective treatment modalities that can improve the clinical outcome of patients with glioblastoma multiforme remains imperative. Dendritic cell vaccination is a fast-developing treatment modality, currently under exploration. Functional immune cell subpopulations may play a role in the final outcome.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Data from 101 patients drawn from the HGG-2010 trial, including baseline patient characteristics and fluorescence-activated cell sorting of immune cell subpopulations, were analyzed by statistical and machine-learning methods.

RESULTS

The analysis revealed strong correlations between immune profiles and overall survival, when the extent of resection and the vaccination schedule were used as stratification variables.

CONCLUSION

A systematic, in silico workflow detecting strong and statistically significant correlations between overall survival and immune profile-derived quantities obtained at the start of dendritic cell vaccination was devised. The derived correlations could serve as a basis for the identification of prognostic markers discriminating between potential long- and short-term survivors of patients with glioblastoma multiforme.