Tumor-infiltrating immune cells and survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: a retrospective computational study.

The immune infiltration profiles of the tumor microenvironment have effects on the prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Whereas, HNSCC is a heterogeneous group of tumors, but past work has not taken this into consideration. Herein, we investigate the associations between survival and the function of immune cells in different tumorigenic sites of HNSCC. 1149 samples of HNSCC were collected from publicly accessible databases. Based on gene expression data, CIBERSORTx was applied to determine the proportion of 22 immune cell subpopulations. In the Cox regression model, the associations between overall survival, disease-free survival, and immune cells were examined, modeling gene expression and immune cell proportion as quartiles. Consensus cluster analysis was utilized to uncover immune infiltration profiles. Regardless of tumor sites, CD8+ T cells and activated CD4 memory T cells were associated with favorable survival, while eosinophils were the opposite. The survival of the hypopharynx, oral cavity, and larynx subsites was somewhat affected by immune cells, while the survival of the oropharynx subsite potentially was the most impacted. High expression of TIGIT, CIITA, and CXCR6 was linked to better survival, mainly in the oropharynx subsite. Immune cell clusters with four distinct survival profiles were discovered, of which the cluster with a high CD8+ T cell content had a better prognosis. The immune-infiltration pattern is related to the survival of HNSCC to varying degrees depending on the tumor sites; forthcoming studies into immune-mediated infiltration profiles will lay the groundwork for treating HNSCC with precision therapy.

Relevance of Immune Infiltration and Clinical Outcomes in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Subtypes.

PURPOSE: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal cancer with high heterogeneity and dismal survival rates. Tumor immune microenvironment plays a critical role in sensitive to chemotherapy and prognosis. Herein, we determined the relevance of the composition of tumor-infiltrating immune cells to clinical outcomes in PDACs, and we evaluated these effects by molecular subtype. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Data of 1,274 samples from publically available datasets were collected. Molecular subtypes were predicted with support vector machine. Twenty-two subsets of immune cells were estimated with CIBERSORTx. The associations between each cell subset and overall survival (OS), relapse free survival (RFS), and complete response (CR) to chemotherapy were evaluated, modelling cellular proportions as quartiles. RESULTS: An immune-related cluster was identified with unsupervised hierarchical clustering of hallmark pathways. Of the immune cells investigated, M0 macrophages emerged as closely associated with worse OS (HR =1.23, 95% CI = 1.15-1.31, p=1.57×10-9) and RFS (HR = 1.14, 95% CI =1.04-1.25, p=2.93×10-3), regardless of molecular subtypes. The CD8+ T cells conferred favorable survival. The neutrophils conferred poor OS overall (HR=1.17, 95% CI=1.10-1.23, p=1.74×10-7) and within the classical subtype. In the basal-like subtype, activated mast cells were associated with worse OS. Consensus clustering revealed six immune subgroups with distinct survival patterns and CR rates. The higher expression of PD1 was associated with better OS. CONCLUSIONS: The immune cellular composition infiltrate in PDAC are likely to have effects on prognosis. Further exploration of the cellular immune response has the potential to identify candidates for immunotherapy.