Abstract:
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is unique among head and neck cancers for its strong causative association with Epstein Barr-Virus and high levels of immune infiltration that play a role in pathogenesis. As such, immunotherapy for the treatment of NPC is a promising area of research in the pursuit of improving patient outcomes. Understanding the tumour immune microenvironment (TIME) of NPC is the key to developing targeted immunotherapies and stratifying patients to determine optimal treatment regimens. Recent research has uncovered distinct characteristics of the TIME in NPC as well as important differences between the different disease subtypes; however, reviewing the state of the field reveals a further need for the application of novel techniques like multiplexed hyperspectral imaging and mass cytometry. These techniques can be used to identify spatial, compositional, and functional aspects of the TIME in NPC such as immune cell sociology, novel immune populations, and differences in immune-related signalling pathways in NPC in order to identify clinically relevant characteristics for targeted immunotherapy development and biomarker discovery.
摘要:
鼻咽癌(NPC)在头颈部癌症中是独特的,因为它与爱泼斯坦巴尔病毒和高水平的免疫浸润在发病机理中起作用。因此,用于治疗NPC的免疫疗法是追求改善患者预后的有希望的研究领域.了解NPC的肿瘤免疫微环境(TIME)是开发靶向免疫疗法和对患者进行分层以确定最佳治疗方案的关键。最近的研究发现了NPC中时间的不同特征以及不同疾病亚型之间的重要差异;然而,回顾该领域的状况,进一步需要应用新技术,如多路高光谱成像和质量细胞计数。这些技术可以用来识别空间,组成,以及NPC中时间的功能方面,如免疫细胞社会学,新的免疫群体,以及NPC中免疫相关信号通路的差异,以确定靶向免疫疗法开发和生物标志物发现的临床相关特征。