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Spatial heterogeneity of immune infiltration predicts the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

ABSTRACT: Spatial information on the tumor immune microenvironment is of clinical relevance. Here, we aimed to quantify the spatial heterogeneity of lymphocytes and cancer cells and evaluated its prognostic value in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The scanned immunohistochemistry images of 336 NPC patients from two different hospitals were used to generate cell density maps for tumor and immune cells. Then, Getis-Ord hotspot analysis, a spatial statistic method used to describe species biodiversity in ecological habitats, was applied to identify cancer, immune, and immune-cancer hotspots. The results showed that cancer hotspots were not associated with any of the studied clinical outcomes, while immune-cancer hotspots predicted worse overall survival (OS) in the training cohort. In contrast, a high immune hotspot score was significantly associated with better OS (HR 0.41, 95% CI 0.22-0.77, P = .006), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 0.43, 95% CI 0.24-0.75, P = .003) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (HR 0.40, 95% CI 0.20-0.81, P = .011) in NPC patients in the training cohort, and similar associations were also evident in the validation cohort. Importantly, multivariate analysis revealed that the immune hotspot score remained an independent prognostic indicator for OS, DFS, and DMFS in both cohorts. We explored the spatial heterogeneity of cancer cells and lymphocytes in the tumor microenvironment of NPC patients using digital pathology and ecological analysis methods and further constructed three spatial scores. Our study demonstrates that spatial variation may aid in the identification of the clinical prognosis of NPC patients, but further investigation is needed.

SUBMITTER: Wang YQ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8555536 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Spatial heterogeneity of immune infiltration predicts the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

Wang Ya-Qin YQ Liu Xu X Xu Cheng C Jiang Wei W Xu Shuo-Yu SY Zhang Yu Y Liang Ye Lin YL Li Jun-Yan JY Li Qian Q Chen Yu-Pei YP Zhao Yin Y Yun Jing-Ping JP Liu Na N Li Ying-Qin YQ Ma Jun J

Oncoimmunology 20211027 1

Spatial information on the tumor immune microenvironment is of clinical relevance. Here, we aimed to quantify the spatial heterogeneity of lymphocytes and cancer cells and evaluated its prognostic value in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The scanned immunohistochemistry images of 336 NPC patients from two different hospitals were used to generate cell density maps for tumor and immune cells. Then, Getis-Ord hotspot analysis, a spatial statistic method used to describe species biodi ...[more]

PMID: 34721946

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Spatial heterogeneity of immune infiltration predicts the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

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Spatial heterogeneity of immune infiltration predicts the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

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