KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the prognostic relevance and clinical implications of TAMs and their biomarkers in patients with ESCC following surgery.
- Researchers noticed that TAMs in patients with ESCC surgery show vital prognostic relevance, suggesting their potential as treatment targets for improving clinical outcomes.
The role of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) following surgery remains controversial.
Bin Yi and the team aimed to systematically analyze the prognostic and clinical significance of distinct TAMs biomarkers and distributions in patients with ESCC who underwent surgery.
They performed an inclusive analysis by searching PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases up to March 31, 2023. A pooled analysis was conducted to evaluate the effects of TAMs on overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and clinicopathological characteristics using fixed-effects or random-effect models.
About 2,502 patients with ESCC who underwent surgery were involved in 15 studies. The results indicated an inverse association between the total count of CD68+ TAMs and overall survival (OS) and DFS in patients with ESCC, along with a similar trend observed for CD68+ TAMs in tumor islet (TI) with OS. However, no significant association was found between CD68+ TAMs in tumor stroma (TS) and OS.
Additionally, islet and stromal CD163+ TAMs density were identified as prognostic factors in ESCC. Elevated CD204+ TAMs density in TI predicted poor DFS, although it had no significant relationship with OS. High CD68+ TAMs density was significantly associated with lymphatic vessel invasion, vascular invasion, and lymph node metastasis (all P<0.05).
The study concluded that the prognostic and clinical significance of TAMs in patients with ESCC who underwent surgery was evident. TAMs emerged as crucial biomarkers with the potential to enhance prognostic stratification and improve clinical outcomes in ESCC post-surgery.
This research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, the Project Program of the National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders (Xiangya Hospital), and the National Multidisciplinary Cooperative Diagnosis and Treatment Capacity Building Project for Major Diseases (Lung Cancer).
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38501293/
Yi B, Zeng J, Li L, et al. (2024). “Prognostic and clinical significance of tumor-associated macrophages in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after surgery: do biomarkers and distributions matter?” Biosci Rep. 2024 Apr 24;44(4):BSR20231194. doi: 10.1042/BSR20231194. PMID: 38501293; PMCID: PMC10994813.
