School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Cancer Cell. 2021 Feb 8;39(2):257-275.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2021.01.001. Epub 2021 Jan 5.
Given the immune system's importance for cancer surveillance and treatment, we have investigated how it may be affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection of cancer patients. Across some heterogeneity in tumor type, stage, and treatment, virus-exposed solid cancer patients display a dominant impact of SARS-CoV-2, apparent from the resemblance of their immune signatures to those for COVID-19 non-cancer patients. This is not the case for hematological malignancies, with virus-exposed patients collectively displaying heterogeneous humoral responses, an exhausted T cell phenotype and a high prevalence of prolonged virus shedding. Furthermore, while recovered solid cancer patients' immunophenotypes resemble those of non-virus-exposed cancer patients, recovered hematological cancer patients display distinct, lingering immunological legacies. Thus, while solid cancer patients, including those with advanced disease, seem no more at risk of SARS-CoV-2-associated immune dysregulation than the general population, hematological cancer patients show complex immunological consequences of SARS-CoV-2 exposure that might usefully inform their care.
鉴于免疫系统对于癌症的监测和治疗至关重要,我们研究了 SARS-CoV-2 感染癌症患者可能会如何影响其免疫系统。在肿瘤类型、分期和治疗方面存在一定异质性的情况下,暴露于 SARS-CoV-2 的实体瘤癌症患者的免疫特征与 COVID-19 非癌症患者的免疫特征非常相似,表明 SARS-CoV-2 对其产生了显著影响。这种情况在血液系统恶性肿瘤中并不存在,暴露于病毒的患者表现出异质性的体液反应、耗尽的 T 细胞表型以及病毒持续排出的高发生率。此外,尽管康复的实体瘤癌症患者的免疫表型与未暴露于病毒的癌症患者相似,但康复的血液系统癌症患者则表现出明显的、持续存在的免疫后遗症。因此,虽然包括晚期疾病在内的实体瘤癌症患者感染 SARS-CoV-2 后发生免疫失调的风险似乎并不比一般人群更高,但血液系统癌症患者的 SARS-CoV-2 暴露会导致复杂的免疫后果,这可能有助于指导他们的治疗。