Targeting the immune system has emerged as an effective therapeutic strategy for the
treatment of various tumor types, including Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
(HNSCC) and Non-small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), and checkpoint inhibitors have shown
to improve patient survival in these tumor types. Unfortunately, not all cancers respond
to these agents, making it necessary to identify responsive tumors. Several biomarkers
of response have been described and clinically tested. As of yet what seems to be
clear is that a pre-activation state of the immune system is necessary for these agents
to be efficient. In this study, using established transcriptomic signatures, we identified
a group of gene combination associated with favorable outcome in HNSCC linked to a
higher presence of immune effector cells. CD2, CD3D,
CD3E, and CXCR6 combined gene
expression is associated with improved outcome of HNSCC patients and an increase of
infiltrating immune effector cells. This new signature also identifies a subset of
cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) patients with favorable prognosis, who show
an increased presence of immune effector cells in the tumor, which outcome shows similarities
with the HP-positive HNSCC cohort of patients. In addition, CD2,
CD3D, CD3E, and CXCR6
signature is able to predict the best favorable prognosis in terms of overall survival
of CSSC patients. Of note, these findings were not reproduced in other squamous cell
carcinomas like esophageal SCC or lung SCC. Prospective confirmatory studies should
be employed to validate these findings.
