The Immune Landscape of Colorectal Cancer.

While the clinical importance of CD8+ and CD3+ cells in colorectal cancer (CRC) is well established, the impact of other immune cell subsets is less well described. We sought to provide a detailed overview of the immune landscape of CRC in the largest study to date in terms of patient numbers and in situ analyzed immune cell types. Tissue microarrays from 536 patients were stained using multiplexed immunofluorescence panels, and fifteen immune cell subclasses, representing adaptive and innate immunity, were analyzed.

The prognostic impact of the tumour stroma fraction: A machine learning-based analysis in 16 human solid tumour types.

Background: The development of a reactive tumour stroma is a hallmark of tumour progression and pronounced tumour stroma is generally considered to be associated with clinical aggressiveness. The variability between tumour types regarding stroma fraction, and its prognosis associations, have not been systematically analysed.

Methods: Using an objective machine-learning method we quantified the tumour stroma in 16 solid cancer types from 2732 patients, representing retrospective tissue collections of surgically resected primary tumours.

Topographical Distribution and Spatial Interactions of Innate and Semi-Innate Immune Cells in Pancreatic and Other Periampullary Adenocarcinoma.

Background: The clinical management of pancreatic and other periampullary neoplasms remains challenging. In contrast to other cancer types, immunotherapies are largely ineffective, and the reason for the deprived immune response and the immune inhibiting cellular composition is only fragmentarily understood. The aim of this study was to comprehensively map the abundance, topographic distribution and spatial interaction of innate and innate-like immune cells in the tumor microenvironment of periampullary adenocarcinoma.

Stroma-normalised vessel density predicts benefit from adjuvant fluorouracil-based chemotherapy in patients with stage II/III colon cancer.

Background: Identification of biomarkers associated with benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy in stage II/III colon cancer is an important task.

Methods: Vessel density (VD) and tumour stroma were analysed in a randomised-trial-derived discovery cohort (n = 312) and in a stage II/III group of a population-based validation cohort (n = 85). VD was scored separately in the tumour centre, invasive margin and peritumoral stroma compartments and quantitated as VD/total analysed tissue area or VD/stroma area.

Treatment-related survival associations of claudin-2 expression in fibroblasts of colorectal cancer.

Claudin-2 is a trans-membrane protein-component of tight junctions in epithelial cells. Elevated claudin-2 expression has been reported in colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of this study was to investigate the expression patterns of claudin-2 in human CRC samples and analyze its association with clinical characteristics and treatment outcome.

Multi-parametric profiling of renal cell, colorectal, and ovarian cancer identifies tumour-type-specific stroma phenotypes and a novel vascular biomarker.

A novel set of integrated procedures for quantification of fibroblast-rich stroma and vascular characteristics has recently been presented allowing discovery of novel perivascular and stromal biomarkers in colorectal, renal cell, and ovarian cancer. In the present study, data obtained through these procedures from clinically well-annotated collections of these three tumour types have been used to address two novel questions. First, data have been used to investigate if the three tumour types demonstrate significant differences regarding features such as vessel diameter, vessel density, and perivascular marker expression.

Image analysis-derived metrics of histomorphological complexity predicts prognosis and treatment response in stage II-III colon cancer.

The complexity of tumor histomorphology reflects underlying tumor biology impacting on natural course and response to treatment. This study presents a method of computer-aided analysis of tissue sections, relying on multifractal (MF) analyses, of cytokeratin-stained tumor sections which quantitatively evaluates of the morphological complexity of the tumor-stroma interface. This approach was applied to colon cancer collection, from an adjuvant treatment randomized study.