Our biweekly trainee-led series, Tuesday Tidbits, is back!
This week, we are highlighting a study by GCI Investigator Dr. Brad H. Nelson et al.
While it’s now generally accepted that ovarian cancer is an immunogenic disease (i.e., your immune system can recognize and mount a response against it), little is known about what immunological features are desirable for effective anti-cancer immunity in this disease.
The average survival rate for ovarian cancer is less than 5 years, meaning identifying patients who have defied the odds and survived for many years, and thus might harbour an ideal anti-cancer immune response which could be studied, is very challenging.
This paper studied a remarkably large cohort of over 1000 ovarian cancer patients for patterns in the immune responses of long-term survivors (LTS).
When studying 10 immune cell types that infiltrated the ovarian cancer tumors from these patients, they found that long-term survival was associated with the presence of almost all (9/10) of these immune cells. In particular, LTS was related to the presence of T cells directly intermixed amongst tumor cells, as well as B cells in the surrounding areas. Moreover, the benefits of T cells and B cells were especially strong in tumours with more differentiated features (i.e., more like normal epithelium).
This is one of the largest immune profiling studies of ovarian cancer survivors, with important implications for further exploration of the ovarian cancer tumor micro environment, and potential immunotherapy strategies.
Contributing GCI Members:
Micheal Anglesio, David G Huntsman, Aline Talhouk, Gillian Hanley
Source:
Nelson BH, Hamilton P, Phung MT, Milne K, Harris B, Thornton S, Stevens D, Kalaria S, Singh K, Laumont CM, Moss E, Alimujiang A, Meagher NS, Bolithon A, Fereday S, Kennedy CJ, Hendley J, Ariyaratne D, Alsop K, Traficante N, Goode EL, Karnezis A, Shen H, Richardson J, McKinnonDeurloo C, Chase A, Grout B, Doherty JA, Harris HR, Cushing-Haugen KL, Anglesio M, Heinze K, Huntsman D, Talhouk A, Hanley GE, Alsop J, Jimenez-Linan M, Pharoah PD, Boros J, Brand AH, Harnett PR, Sharma R, Hecht JL, Sasamoto N, Terry KL, Karlan B, Lester J, Carney ME, Goodman MT, Hernandez BY, Wilkens LR, Behrens S, Turzanski Fortner R, Fasching PA, Bisinotto C, Candido Dos Reis FJ, Ghatage P, Köbel M, Elishaev E, Modugno F, Cook L, Le N, Gentry-Maharaj A, Menon U, García MJ, Rodriguez-Antona C, Farrington K, Kelemen LE, Kommoss S, Staebler A, Garsed DW, Brenton JD, Piskorz AM, Bowtell DD, DeFazio A, Ramus SJ, Pike MC, Pearce CL. Immunological and molecular features of the tumor microenvironment of long-term survivors of ovarian cancer. J Clin Invest. 2024 Oct 29;134(24):e179501. doi: 10.1172/JCI179501. PMID: 39470729; PMCID: PMC11645148.
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