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Immunohistological evaluation of patients treated with intra-arterial chemoradiotherapy and surgery for oral cancer

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Abstract

Preoperative intra-arterial chemoradiotherapy (IACRT) can improve the outcome and reduce the extent of surgery in patients with advanced oral cancer. However, the response to this regimen varies among patients, which may be related to the immune status of the tumor. We investigated the effects of proteins involved in tumor immunity on the outcomes of combined IACRT and surgery for oral cancer. We examined CD8 + and FoxP3 + tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression on immune cells and tumor cells in pretreatment biopsy samples from 69 patients diagnosed with oral cancer treated with IACRT at our institution during 2000–2020. Patients with abundant CD8 + TILs had significantly better 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) compared to that of patients with less infiltration of these cells (P = 0.016). Patients with higher FoxP3 + T-cells invasion had significantly better DSS compared to that of less FoxP3 (P = 0.005). Patients with high PD-L1 expression in tumor cells and immune cells had significantly better DSS than that of patients with low PD-L1 expression in these cells (P = 0.009 and P = 0.025, respectively). Collectively, these results suggest that the tumor immune microenvironment could affect outcomes of IACRT treatment in oral cancer.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grants 21K07648, 21K07680, 22K07671, 23K07161, and 23K14923.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, S1W16, Chuo-Ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8543, Japan

    Yutaro Ikeuchi, Masanori Someya, Tomokazu Hasegawa, Masato Saito, Shoh Mafune, Takaaki Tsuchiya, Mio Kitagawa, Toshio Gocho & Koh-ichi Sakata

  2. Department of Oral Surgery, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

    Hironari Dehari, Kazuhiro Ogi, Takanori Sasaki & Akihiro Miyazaki

  3. Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

    Yoshihiko Hirohashi & Toshihiko Torigoe

  4. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, KKR Sapporo Medical Center, Sapporo, Japan

    Naoki Hirokawa

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  1. Yutaro Ikeuchi
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  2. Masanori Someya
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Correspondence to Masanori Someya.

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Ikeuchi, Y., Someya, M., Hasegawa, T. et al. Immunohistological evaluation of patients treated with intra-arterial chemoradiotherapy and surgery for oral cancer. Med Mol Morphol 56, 288–296 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00795-023-00367-8

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