Zhu Jiabin, Ning Yudong
Department of Neurology, Teng Zhou Central People's Hospital, Tengzhou, China.
Department of Head and Neck Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Front Oncol. 2025 Jun 23;15:1586130. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1586130. eCollection 2025.
Cancer ranks among the most formidable diseases. Currently, the treatment of malignant tumors has entered the immunotherapy era. Immunotherapy has achieved remarkable progress in treating malignant tumors, including head neck squamous cell carcinoma. Nevertheless, a significant number of patients exhibit a limited response to this treatment. Thus, the quest for novel molecular biomarkers to assess the efficacy of immunotherapy is of utmost importance. In recent years, the prediction and evaluation of immune efficacy have emerged as focal points of research. Biomarkers developed based on tissue biopsies (such as programmed death ligand-1 expression, tumor infiltrates lymphocyte subsets, tumor mutation burden, cancer-associated fibroblasts, etc.), liquid biopsies (circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells, and extracellular vesicles, etc.), when combined with nanotechnology, have shown the potential for highly sensitive prediction. This is achieved through non-invasive real-time monitoring of clonal evolution and immune escape. Moreover, radiomics and artificial intelligence (such as deep-learning models) can noninvasively predict and evaluate treatment response and prognosis. In this study, we comprehensively summarize the research progress of molecular markers for predicting and evaluating the efficacy of immunotherapy in head neck squamous cell carcinoma. We approach this from the perspectives of tissue biopsy, liquid biopsy, radiomics, and artificial intelligence.
癌症位列最可怕的疾病之中。目前,恶性肿瘤的治疗已进入免疫治疗时代。免疫疗法在治疗恶性肿瘤方面取得了显著进展,包括头颈部鳞状细胞癌。然而,相当一部分患者对这种治疗的反应有限。因此,寻找新的分子生物标志物来评估免疫治疗的疗效至关重要。近年来,免疫疗效的预测和评估已成为研究的焦点。基于组织活检(如程序性死亡配体-1表达、肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞亚群、肿瘤突变负荷、癌症相关成纤维细胞等)、液体活检(循环肿瘤DNA、循环肿瘤细胞和细胞外囊泡等)开发的生物标志物,与纳米技术相结合时,已显示出高灵敏度预测的潜力。这是通过对克隆进化和免疫逃逸的无创实时监测来实现的。此外,放射组学和人工智能(如深度学习模型)可以无创地预测和评估治疗反应及预后。在本研究中,我们全面总结了头颈部鳞状细胞癌免疫治疗疗效预测和评估的分子标志物的研究进展。我们从组织活检、液体活检、放射组学和人工智能的角度来进行探讨。