A minority-group of renal cell cancer patients with high infiltration of CD20+B-cells is associated with poor prognosis
Menée à partir de l'analyse immunohistochimique d'échantillons tumoraux prélevés sur 297 patients atteints d'un cancer à cellules rénales, puis validée sur 64 patients complémentaires et à partir de données portant sur 534 patients atteints d'un carcinome rénal à cellules claires, cette étude met en évidence, chez un sous-groupe de patients, une association entre un niveau intratumoral élevé de lymphocytes B CD20+ et un pronostic défavorable
Background : The role of B-lymphocytes in solid tumours is unclear. Tumour biology studies have implied both anti- and pro-tumoural effects and prognostic studies have mainly linked B-cells to increased survival. This study aimed to analyse the clinical relevance of B-lymphocytes in renal cell cancer (RCC), where information on the prognostic impact is lacking.
Methods : Following immunohistochemistry (IHC) stainings with a CD20 antibody, density of CD20+ B-cells was quantified in an RCC discovery- and validation cohort. Associations of B-cell infiltration, determined by CD20 expression or a B-cell gene-signature, and survival was also analysed in 14 publicly available gene expression datasets of cancer, including the kidney clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) dataset.
Results : IHC analyses of the discovery cohort identified a previously unrecognised subgroup of RCC patients with high infiltration of CD20+ B-cells. The B-cell-high subgroup displayed significantly shorter survival according to uni- and multi-variable analyses. The association between poor prognosis and high density of CD20+ B-cells was confirmed in the validation cohort. Analyses of the KIRC gene expression dataset using the B-cell signature confirmed findings from IHC analyses. Analyses of other gene expression datasets, representing 13 different tumour types, indicated that the poor survival-association of B-cells occurred selectively in RCC.
Conclusion : This exploratory study identifies a previously unrecognised poor-prognosis subset of RCC with high density of CD20-defined B-cells.
British Journal of Cancer , résumé, 2018