Study on the correlation between tertiary lymphoid structure and clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

doi:10.19438/j.cjoms.2024.06.004

Abstract

Abstract: PURPOSE: To explore the relationship between tertiary lymphoid structure(TLS) and clinicopathological characteristics, programmed death ligand 1(PD-L1), CD8 positive infiltrating cells, and prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC). METHODS: A total of 72 patients diagnosed with HNSCC in the Department of Oral Pathology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from May 2017 to September 2022 were enrolled in this study. The expressions of CD20, CD3, CD21, PNAd, PD-L1 and CD8 in tumor tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry, and combined positive score(CPS) was used to evaluated the PD-L1 expression level. The Caseviewer software was used to calculate the infiltration degree and proportion of CD8 positively staining cells. Statistical analysis of the correlation between TLS status and clinicopathological characteristics, PD-L1 expression, tumor immune microenvironment, and prognosis was performed using SPSS 25.0 software package. RESULTS: Of the 72 patients with HNSCC, TLS positive rate was 41.7% (30/72). The TLS positive rate in patients <58 years old was significantly higher than that in patients ≥58 years old (P=0.004). There was no significant correlation between TLS status and other clinicopathological characteristics. The positive rate of TLS in the PD-L1 high expression group was significantly higher than that in the PD-L1 low expression group (60.7% vs. 29.5%, P=0.014). The infiltration degree and proportion of CD8 positive cells in TLS positive HNSCC cases are significantly higher than those in TLS negative HNSCC cases. The PD-L1 high expression group and TLS positive patients have a higher overall survival rate. CONCLUSIONS: TLS structure is significantly positively correlated with PD-L1 expression, CD8 positive cell infiltration degree, and infiltration proportion in HNSCC. Patients in the TLS positive group had a significantly better prognosis than those in the TLS negative group, indicating a close relationship between TLS and the tumor immune microenvironment, tumor immunotherapy response, and prognosis in HNSCC.

Key words: Tertiary lymphoid structure, Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Clinicopathological characteristics, Immunotherapy, Tumor microenvironment, Prognosis

CLC Number:

R739.8

XUE Jun-qing, ZHANG Ying, HU Yu-hua, LI Jiang, XIA Rong-hui. Study on the correlation between tertiary lymphoid structure and clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma[J]. China Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 2024, 22(6): 541-546.

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