Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kulasinghe, Arutha
• Taheri, Touraj
• O'Byrne, Ken
• Hughes, Brett G M
• Kenny, Liz
• Punyadeera, Chamindie

Titel

Highly Multiplexed Digital Spatial Profiling of the Tumor Microenvironment of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients

Ist Teil von

• Frontiers in oncology, 2021-01, Vol.10, p.607349-607349

Ort / Verlag

Switzerland: Frontiers Media S.A

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Free E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have shown durable and long-term benefits in a subset of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. To identify patient-responders from non-responders, biomarkers are needed which are predictive of outcome to ICI therapy. Cues in the tumor microenvironment (TME) have been informative in understanding the tumor-immune contexture. In this preliminary study, the NanoString GeoMx™ Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) technology was used to determine the immune marker and compartment specific measurements in a cohort of HNSCC tumors from patients receiving ICI therapy. Our data revealed that markers involved with immune cell infiltration (CD8 T-cells) were not predictive of outcome to ICI therapy. Rather, a number of immune cell types and protein markers (CD4, CD68, CD45, CD44, CD66b) were found to correlate with progressive disease. Cross platform comparison with the Opal Vectra (Perkin Elmer) for a number of markers across similar regions of interest demonstrated concordance for pan-cytokeratin, CD8, and PD-L1. This study, to our knowledge, represents the first digital spatial analysis of HNSCC tumors. A larger cohort of HNSCC will be required to orthogonally validate the findings.