Corelation of Lymphocytic Infiltrates with the Prognosis of Recurrent Colo-Rectal Cancer
S.T. Makkai-Popa, S. Luncă, G. Dimofte, A. Vrânceanu, D. Franciug, I. Ivanov, F. Zugun, E. Târcoveanu, E. CaraseviciOriginal article, no. 6, 2013
Background: Recent studies are focusing on complementaryprognostic and predictive markers that could complete thepredictive TNM staging and one of the most promisingdirections is the study of tumor immune infiltrates.Materials and methods: Our 2-year retrospective study includesresection specimens from the primary tumors of 23 patientspresenting to our clinic for a local or a distant relapse aftercolon or rectal cancer. From every primary tumor specimen weobtained immunohistochemically stained slides in order toassess cd3, cd4, cd8, cd45ro and cd68 infiltrates. Digitalanalysis assessed the density and percentage of positivelystained cells in the normal peritumoral tissue, invasive marginand center of the tumor.Results: A small density of cd8 positive cells in the peritumoralregion was strongly correlated with a longer disease-freeinterval (p=0.009) and the Kaplan-Meier survival analysisshowed that the percentage of cd8+ T cells could be used to stratify patients in terms of relapse risk (p=0.006). We found nocorrelation between invasion front infiltrates and intratumoralinfiltrates and the disease-free interval.Conclusion: Our study concludes that cytotoxic T-cellinfiltrates in the normal peritumoral tissue could be used topredict a more aggressive tumor in terms of the relapse risk.
