Abstract:
Objective We compared the expression and distribution differences of CD103-positive (CD103+) tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) in a cohort of patients with high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSC) between those who were treated with primary debulking surgery (PDS) or neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), followed by evaluating the relationship between CD103+TIL and clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis of the patient.
Methods A total of 137 patients with detailed clinical data were selected between June 2018 and June 2019 at West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University. The paraffin specimens were used to make tissue microarrays, with 83 cases in the PDS group and 54 cases in the NACT group. The relationship between CD103+TIL and CD8-, CD4-positive (CD8+, CD4+) TIL, as well as the expression and distribution of CD103+TIL in tumor tissue of two patient groups were observed by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence co-staining analyses. Further, appropriate statistical methods were used to evaluate the correlation between CD103+TIL expression and clinical treatment and prognosis in patients.
Results χ² test results revealed that the expression of CD103+TIL and CD8+TIL in the NACT group was higher than that in the PDS group (P=0.026 and P=0.029). CD103+TIL and CD8+TIL were closely associated with chemotherapy sensitivity (P=0.030 and P=0.018); in the NACT cohort. However, there was no significance with CD4+TIL and all clinical pathological characteristics in the PDS and NACT cohort (P>0.05). Spearman test confirmed the strong correlation between the expression of CD103+TIL and CD8+TIL (P<0.01). Also, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence co-staining analyses directly confirmed that CD103+TIL were primarily CD8+TIL cells. The univariable and Cox proportional hazard model multivariable survival analysis supported that only CD103+TIL and CD8+TIL in tumor epithelial cells had prognostic significance (P<0.05).
Conclusions CD103+TIL in patients with ovarian HGSC is mainly distributed in the tumor epithelium and is a subset of CD8+TIL with higher activity. CD103+TIL is a better prognostic factor than CD8+TIL.