Investigations on the prognostic relevance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells in HNSCC patients on the basis of RNAseq data from the TCGA-HNSC cohort and immunohistochemical validation on 101 patients

 

Introduction Due to the increasing value of immune checkpoint inhibition in the therapeutic spectrum for HNSCC patients this scientific work carves out the prognostic relevance of tumor infiltrating immune cells. In this connection, RNA sequence data of the TCGA-HNSC cohort were used. For validation we planned a verification of the five most significant cell populations (naïve B cells, follicular T-helper cells, macrophages, regulatory T cells, lymphocytes) on a proprietary patient collective.

Methods The overall survival (OS) of the TCGA-HNSC cohort was analyzed as a function of the infiltration of 32 different immune cells based on a RNAseq deconvolution algorithm. The validation on our own patient collective (n=101) consisted of an immunohistochemical staining on FFPE probes, a semi quantitative evaluation and a correlation with the OS for the 5 prognostic most significant cell populations (CD3; CD20+CXCR5; CD4+CXCR5; Foxp3; CD68).

Results The most significant correlation with a favorable prognosis in case of an increased infiltration could be shown for naïve B cells (p=0.0006), follicular T-helper cells (p<0.0001), macrophages (p=0.0042), regulatory T cells (p=0.0306) and lymphocytes (p=0.0001) in the TCGA-HNSC cohort. Those prognostics effects could largely be verified in our validation cohort of 101 HNSCC patients by immunohistochemistry.

Conclusion Because of the shown evidence for a relevant prognostic relevance of immune tumor microenvironment in HNSCC patients more research work is urgently needed to determine the specific value of these immune cells for the tumor biology and to understand its relevance for the response on immunotherapy.

Publication History

Article published online:
24 May 2022

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