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Volume 2
Journal of Molecular Cancer
Cancer & Primary Healthcare 2019
May 20-21, 2019
Cancer Research & Oncology
Primary Healthcare and Medicare Summit
May 20-21, 2019 | Rome, Italy
25
th
Global Meet on
World Congress on
&
Prognostic value of CD8 Immunogradient indicators in tumour-stroma interface zone
of colorectal cancer
Ausrine Nestarenkaite
Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Clinics, Lithuania
Statement of the Problem:
The immune response within the tumour microenvironment assessment methods
were proposed to predict patient survival and therapy outcomes in colorectal (CRC) and other cancers;
nevertheless, automated operator-independent approaches are lacking. We present a new image analysis
method to automatically extract Immunogradient indicators and their prognostic value in CRC patients.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation:
Surgically excised CRC samples from 101 patients were stained for
CD8, scanned, and analyzed by Indica labs HALOTM software. The image analysis data was then subsampled
by a hexagonal grid which was used to extract and rank the tumour interface zone (IZ) according to distance
to the tumour edge. Lastly, a set of novel Immunogradient indicators representing CD8 cell density profiles
across the IZ were computed. The prognostic value of the indicators was tested by univariate and multiple
survival statistics. Findings: The Immunogradient indicators ImmunoDrop (ID) and Centre of Mass (CM) for
the CD8 cells, as well as CD8 cell densities within tumour and stroma aspects of the IZ and their factor scores
provided significant stratifications of CRC patients into prognostic groups (p<0.05). Multiple Cox regression
analyses of extracted indicators along with conventional clinicopathologic characteristics revealed ID and the
Aggregated IZ CD8 cell response factor as strong independent predictors of worse (HR: 2.41, p=0.0126) and
better (HR: 0.41, p=0.0196) 5-year overall survival, respectively.
Conclusion & Significance:
The proposed automated, data-driven digital image analysis method for the IZ
immune infiltrate assessment provides strong independent prognostic biomarkers is operator-independent
and is based on single CD8 immunohistochemistry slides.
Biography
Ausrine Nestarenkaite works as a medical geneticist at the National Center of Pathology and is a doctoral student at Vilnius University,
Institute of Biosciences, in Lithuania. She focuses on the multiparametric and spatial analysis of tumour microenvironment components
in digital microscopy slides. Main scientific interests: Molecular genetics of colorectal cancer, cancer immunology, and digital pathology
applications.
ausrine.nestarenkaite@vpc.ltJ Mol Cancer, Volume 2