Article Text
Abstract
Objectives Cancer-related systemic inflammation has been associated with prognosis in multiple cancer types. Conversely, local inflammation, which is characterized by dense intratumoral immune infiltrates, is a favorable predictor of survival outcome. However, these survival associations are not well established in ovarian cancer, particularly in the less frequent endometrioid and clear cell endometriosis associated histotypes.
Methods This retrospective study included 119 patients (63 endometrioid and 56 clear cell ovarian carcinomas). We performed a comprehensive survival association analysis of both systemic (neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio or presence of endometriosis) and local inflammation markers (CD3+ and CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models that account for confounding factors.
Results Medium to high levels of intraepithelial CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes are associated with longer survival in endometrioid ovarian cancer (p=0.04). In addition, we found that intraepithelial CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes are prognostic in clear cell ovarian cancer (p=0.02), and that intraepithelial CD3+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes are also associated with improved outcome (p=0.02). Furthermore, intratumoral CD3+ and CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes showed improved prognosis in the endometrioid subtype (p<0.1). No prognostic value was observed for systemic immune markers.
Conclusions In this study, patients with endometrioid and clear cell ovarian cancer with moderate to high CD8+ and CD3+ intraepithelial tumor infiltrating lymphocytes had longer overall survival. Higher expression of intratumoral CD3+ and CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes also showed an improved outcome in endometrioid ovarian cancer. In contrast, systemic inflammation, evaluated by neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio or presence of endometriosis, did not have a prognostic impact in these histologic subtypes.
- ovarian cancer
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. All code and data to reproduce the analyses found in this paper can be found in the following repository: https://github.com/macintyrelab/InmflammationMarkers.
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. All code and data to reproduce the analyses found in this paper can be found in the following repository: https://github.com/macintyrelab/InmflammationMarkers.
Footnotes
Twitter @DHardissonMD
Contributors Conceptualization: AG, GM, AR, MJG. Data collection: AG, MM, AB. Data analysis: AG, BG, BC, GM. Writing—original draft preparation: AG, BH, AC, GM, AR, MJG. Writing—review and editing: AG, MM, AB, BH, AC, BC, VH-S, ES, AH, DH, GM, AR, MJG. Supervision: GM, AR, MJG. AG is responsible for the overall content as the guarantor.
Funding This research received funding from the 7th Jan Vermorken Research Grant for Research in Gynaecological Cancer awarded by the Spanish Group for Investigation on Ovarian Cancer (GEICO). This study was funded by the Acción Estrategica en Salud (AES) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI19/01730) and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). BH, GM and MJG were supported by funding from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Competing interests AG reports honoraria and advisory/consultancy (Pharmamar), travel/accommodation/expenses (Roche, Tesaro-GSK, Pierre-Fabre, Pharmamar, MSD), speakers bureau (Roche, Clovis, Astra Zeneca, MSD) outside the submitted work. MM reports having received honoraria (MSD, AstraZeneca and GSK), research grant/funding to her institution (Eisai and PharmaMar), and travel/accommodation/expenses (AstraZeneca, GSK, PharmaMar, Roche and Pfizer) outside the submitted work. GM is a founder, director and shareholder of Tailor Bio Ltd, a genomics company using copy number signatures for precision medicine. AR reports having received honoraria and providing advisory/consultancy services (MSD, AstraZeneca, Roche, GSK, Clovis, PharmaMar, Amgen), research grant/funding to his institution (Eisai, PharmaMar, Roche), travel/accommodation/expenses (AstraZeneca, Tesaro: A GSK Company, PharmaMar, Roche), and participating in a speakers bureau (MSD, AstraZeneca, Roche, GSK, Clovis, PharmaMar) outside the submitted work.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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