Abstract
The prognostic role of tumor-infiltrating CD57-positive lymphocytes (CD57+ lymphocytes) in human solid tumors remains controversial. Herein, we conducted a meta-analysis including 26 published studies with 7656 patients identified from PubMed and EBSCO to assess the prognostic impact of tumor-infiltrating CD57+ lymphocytes in human solid tumors. We found that CD57+ lymphocyte infiltration significantly improved overall survival (OS) including 1 – year, 3 – year and 5 – year survival, and disease – free survival (DFS) in all types of solid tumors. In stratified analyses, CD57+ lymphocyte infiltration was significantly associated with better OS in hepatocellular, esophageal, head and neck carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, 5 – year survival in colorectal cancer, and 3 – year and 5 – year survival in gastric cancer, but not with 1 – year survival in gastric cancer, or 1 – year or 3 – year survival in colorectal cancer. In addition, high density of intratumoral CD57+ lymphocytes was significantly inversely correlated with lymph node metastasis and TNM stage of solid tumor. In conclusion, CD57+ lymphocyte infiltration leads to a favorable clinical outcome in solid tumors, implicating that it is a useful biomarker for prognosis and adoptive immunotherapy based on these cells may be a promising choice for treatment.
Highlights
Tumor microenvironment (TME) has proven to be closely related to the development and progression of cancer through diverse mechanisms including promoting immune suppression and stimulating angiogenesis [1]
All included studies were assessed using Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS), and met the inclusion criteria. Characteristics of these studies for overall survival (OS), disease – free survival (DFS) and clinicopathological features including TNM stage etal have been exhibited in Table 1 and Supplementary Table 1 respectively. In this meta-analysis, the pooled results indicated that increased density of intratumoral CD57+ lymphocytes was significantly associated with better OS (HR = 0.62, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.75, P = 0.000) in solid tumors (Figure 1)
In subgroup analyses according to the types of cancer, the results indicated that CD57+ lymphocytes infiltrating into tumor significantly improved OS in hepatocellular cancer (HCC) (HR = 0.61, 95% CI 0.44 to 0.85, P = 0.003) and esophageal carcinoma (EC) (HR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.96, P = 0.033), with no heterogeneity being found (I2 = 0.0%, P = 0.882; I2 = 0.0%, P = 0.696 respectively) (Figure 2)
Summary
Tumor microenvironment (TME) has proven to be closely related to the development and progression of cancer through diverse mechanisms including promoting immune suppression and stimulating angiogenesis [1]. Tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) are considered to be the important components of TME [2]. It is important to distinguish among a variety of immune cells as they may play differential roles in the TME. As the important component of adaptive immunity, the functions of CD57positive lymphocytes in TME have drawn much attention in recent decades. These lymphocytes have been demonstrated to play significant roles in a number of human cancers
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