Abstract
The detailed understanding of the immunobiology of tumor microenvironment has recently translated into new therapeutic approach against human cancers. Besides the role of immune cells mediating adaptive immune responses, the tumor infiltrating components of the innate immune system including, neutrophils, mast cells, NK cells, and macrophages, also role importantly in anti-tumor immunity. In our present study, we retrospectively analyzed the prognostic value of the densities of tumor infiltrating NK cells and macrophages in esophageal cancer tissues derived from stage II+III patients. Our results showed that the density of the infiltrating NK cells in tumor stroma was significantly associated with nodal status. In addition, the densities of the infiltrating NK cells in tumor nest, and the infiltrating macrophages in tumor nest as well as in tumor stroma, were significantly associated with patients' postoperative prognoses. Furthermore, the combination of infiltrating NK cells in tumor nest and stroma, or the combination of infiltrating macrophages in tumor nest and stroma, could also be used as important prognostic tool in predicting the survival of the stage II+III esophageal cancer patients.
Highlights
Esophageal cancer is one of the most important cancer types of human digestive tract, and still has a high rate of incidence and mortality in China [1]
Except for the correlation between nodal status and infiltrating density of CD57+ nature killer (NK) cells in the tumor stroma, no other significant correlation was observed between infiltrating density of CD57+ NK cells, CD68+ macrophages and clinical parameters, such as gender, age, tumor size and TNM stage in tumor nest and stroma
It’s of great importance to better understand the role of innate immune system in anti-tumor immunity, to establish the predicting model of cancer progression, its prognosis, and develop novel therapeutic strategy based on immune intervention [15, 16]
Summary
Esophageal cancer is one of the most important cancer types of human digestive tract, and still has a high rate of incidence and mortality in China [1]. Many factors have been shown to be associated with its progression including local inflammation and esophagitis, in addition to some other habits such as intake of alcohol, tobacco, very hot drinks, and poor diet [2]. It is categorized mainly into two sub-types, a) esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (ESCC) and, b) esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) [3]. Despite the use of numerous therapeutic strategies such surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy and other combined therapies for its clinical treatment, the 5-year survival still remains poor [5]. It reinforces the need to identify and establish, additional novel prognostic tools for the clinical evaluation of patients suffering from esophageal cancer
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