Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Department of Surgery, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Anticancer Res. 2024 Apr;44(4):1603-1610. doi: 10.21873/anticanres.16958.
BACKGROUND/AIM: The immune microenvironment in cancer correlates with cancer progression and patient prognosis. Cancer immune microenvironment evaluation, based on CD3 and CD8 T cell infiltration at the center and invasive margin of the tumor, is defined as the immunoscore. An international multicenter analysis revealed that the immunoscore can accurately predict the prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) (stage I, II, and III). However, no markers are currently available to predict the prognosis in patients with stage IV CRC. We thus aimed to analyze the immune microenvironment in patients with stage IV CRC in this study.
We analyzed the immune microenvironment of patients with stage IV CRC using immunohistochemical (IHC) staining. We evaluated the expressions of CD8 and the cases were divided into CD8 high (CD8) and CD8 low (CD8) groups according to median CD8 expression. HLA class 1 (HLA1) expression was also evaluated using IHC staining and the cases were divided into HLA1 group and HLA1 group according to 50% of HLA1 expression rate. CD8×HLA1 score was defined by the combination of CD8 and HLA1 expressions.
CD8 and HLA1 cases were associated with better prognosis compared with CD8 and HLA1 cases according to a log-rank test, respectively. We defined a novel biomarker by combining CD8 T-cell infiltration and HLA1 expression, referred to as the CD8×HLA1 score. We found that CD8×HLA1 cases predicted patient prognosis better than CD8×HLA1 and CD8×HLA1 according to a log-rank test.
The combination of CD8 T cell infiltration and HLA1 expression is crucial for cancer immune microenvironment evaluation in CRCs.
背景/目的：癌症中的免疫微环境与癌症进展和患者预后相关。基于肿瘤中心和浸润边缘的 CD3 和 CD8 T 细胞浸润的癌症免疫微环境评估被定义为免疫评分。一项国际多中心分析显示，免疫评分可以准确预测结直肠癌（CRC）（I 期、II 期和 III 期）患者的预后。然而，目前尚无标志物可预测 IV 期 CRC 患者的预后。因此，我们旨在本研究中分析 IV 期 CRC 患者的免疫微环境。
我们使用免疫组化（IHC）染色分析 IV 期 CRC 患者的免疫微环境。我们评估了 CD8 的表达，并根据 CD8 表达的中位数将病例分为 CD8 高（CD8）和 CD8 低（CD8）组。我们还使用 IHC 染色评估 HLA 类 1（HLA1）的表达，并根据 HLA1 表达率的 50%将病例分为 HLA1 组和 HLA1 组。CD8×HLA1 评分是通过 CD8 和 HLA1 表达的组合定义的。
根据对数秩检验，与 CD8 和 HLA1 病例相比，CD8 和 HLA1 病例的预后更好。我们通过结合 CD8 T 细胞浸润和 HLA1 表达定义了一种新的生物标志物，称为 CD8×HLA1 评分。我们发现，根据对数秩检验，CD8×HLA1 病例比 CD8×HLA1 和 CD8×HLA1 病例预测患者预后更好。
CD8 T 细胞浸润和 HLA1 表达的结合对于 CRC 中癌症免疫微环境的评估至关重要。
