Alterations of blood monocyte subsets and circulating CD4/CD8 T Cells as bioliquid parameters for prognosis and therapy response prediction in Head and Neck Cancer

Introduction Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma represents a heterogeneous malignant disease with a multitude of associated factors such as HPV, cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, or aging. However, the respective influence of these well-established factors on immunologic alterations of monocyte subsets or T-cell compositions and the individual therapy response is not fully unveiled yet.

Materials and methods Using flow cytometry, whole blood measurements of CD14/CD16 monocyte subsets and analyses of T cell subsets in isolated PBMC fractions were carried out in 64 HNSCC patients in view of various individual and clinical parameters. Furthermore, the expression of checkpoint pathway proteins PD-1 and PD-L1 was analyzed.

Results HNSCC patients revealed heterogeneous individual redistributions of CD14++CD16- (classical), CD14++CD16+ (intermediate) and CD14dim+CD16+ (non-classical) monocyte subsets compared to healthy donors. The individual profiles are correlated with significant immunological consequences. Increased percentages of non-classical monocytes as well as increased age significantly correlated with increased levels of monocytic PD-L1 expression. We observed significantly decreased levels of CD4+ effector T cells accompanied by an increase of CD4+ effector memory T cells in oropharyngeal cancer patients compared to healthy donors, each with stronger effects in patients with decreased levels of classical monocytes.

Conclusions  Further comprehensive investigations on larger patient cohorts in correlation with the intra-tumoral immune infiltration and patient survival over a longer period of time will help to establish an individual immune profiling for the clinical prognosis and therapy response prediction of patients suffering from head and neck cancer.

Publication History

Article published online:
12 May 2023