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Is There a Relationship Between TILs and Regression in Melanoma?

  • Melanoma
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Annals of Surgical Oncology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

The relationship between tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and regression in melanoma is unknown. This report describes a large multicenter study assessing the association between TILs and regression.

Methods

The Sentinel Lymph Node Working Group database was queried from 1993 to 2018 for cases with TILs and regression data. Clinicopathologic factors were correlated with regression and TIL status, sentinel lymph node (SLN) status, and overall survival (OS).

Results

The study enrolled 2450 patients. In 1811 cases, TILs (73.9%) were present, with regression present in 328 of these 1811 (18.1%) cases and in 49 (7.7%) of 639 cases without TILs. The presence of TILs was significantly associated with regression (p < 0.0001) as well as a negative SLN (p < 0.05). However, when TILs were stratified by regression status, only absence or presence of both TILs and regression were significantly associated with SLN metastases (p = 0.038). Although the presence of TILs was associated with OS (p < 0.05), regression status by itself was not (p = 0.2058 and 0.252, respectively). Furthermore, when TILs were stratified by regression status, only the presence of TILs with or without regression was significantly associated with improved OS (p = 0.0081 and 0.0137, respectively) versus the absence of both TILs and regression, with regression status not significantly affecting OS for patients with or without TILs (p = 0.2314 and 0.65, respectively).

Conclusions

Regression is highly correlated with TILs, but only TILs are significantly associated with SLN metastasis and OS in melanoma patients, whereas regression is not. The impact of regression on outcomes ultimately appears dependent upon the absence or presence of TILs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Surgical Oncology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA

    Steven Morrison BA, John T. Vetto MD, Graham Fowler BS & Dale Han MD

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Gang Han PhD & Faith Elenwa BS

  3. California Pacific Medical Center and Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Stanley P. Leong MD & Mohammed Kashani-Sabet MD

  4. Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, USA

    Barbara Pockaj MD & Heidi E. Kosiorek MD

  5. Department of Cutaneous Oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, USA

    Jonathan S. Zager MD & Jane L. Messina MD

  6. Department of Oncologic Sciences, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, FL, USA

    Jonathan S. Zager MD

  7. Istituto Tumori Napoli Fondazione G. Pascale, Naples, Italy

    Nicola Mozzillo MD

  8. Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Schlomo Schneebaum MD

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the Sentinel Lymph Node Working Group

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Correspondence to John T. Vetto MD.

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Disclosure

Jonathan S. Zager received research funding from Amgen, Castle Biosciences, Delcath Systems, Novartis, Provectus, and Philogen; served on the medical advisory board for Delcath Systems, the speakers’ bureau for Sun Pharma, and Pfizer; and is a consultant for Merck, Sanofi/Regeneron, Amgen, and Castle Biosciences. John T. Vetto is a speaker for Castle Biosciences.

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Morrison, S., Han, G., Elenwa, F. et al. Is There a Relationship Between TILs and Regression in Melanoma?. Ann Surg Oncol 29, 2854–2866 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-021-11251-z

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