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Regular and young investigator award abstracts
Tumor and stromal cell biology
749 Spatial profiling of the tumour microenvironment in head and neck cancer to identify biomarkers of response to therapy
  1. Arutha Kulasinghe
  1. Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Australia

Abstract

Background Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have shown durable and long-term benefits in a subset of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. To identify patient-responders from non-responders, biomarkers are needed which are predictive of outcome to ICI therapy. Cues in the tumour microenvironment (TME) have been informative in understanding the tumour-immune contexture.

Methods In this study, the NanoString GemoMx™ Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) technology was used to determine the immune marker and compartment specific measurements in a cohort of HNSCC tumours from patients receiving ICI therapy.

Results Our data revealed that markers involved with immune cell infiltration (CD8 T-cells) were not predictive of outcome to ICI therapy. Rather, a number of immune cell types (CD4, CD68, CD45, CD44, CD66b) were found to correlate with progressive disease.

Conclusions This study, to our knowledge, represents the first spatial analysis of HNSCC tumours.

Ethics Approval The study was approved by the Queensland University of Technology Ethics Board.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2020-SITC2020.0749

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