NSCLC is a very aggressive solid tumor, with a poor prognosis due to post-surgical recurrence. Analysis of the specific tumor and immune signatures of NSCLC samples is a critical step in prognostic evaluation and management decisions for patients after surgery. Routine histological assays have some limitations. Therefore, new diagnostic tools with the capability to quickly recognize NSCLC subtypes and correctly identify various markers are needed. We developed a technique for ex vivo isolation of cancer and immune cells from surgical tumor and lung tissue samples of patients with NSCLC (adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas) and their examination on ex vivo cell preparations and, parallelly, on histological sections after Romanovsky–Giemsa and immunofluorescent/immunochemical staining for cancer-specific and immune-related markers. As a result, PD-L1 expression was detected for some patients only by ex vivo analysis. Immune cell profiling in the tumor microenvironment revealed significant differences in the immunological landscapes between the patients’ tumors, with smokers’ macrophages with simultaneous expression of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, neutrophils, and eosinophils being the dominant populations. The proposed ex vivo analysis may be used as an additional diagnostic tool for quick examination of cancer and immune cells in whole tumor samples and to avoid false negatives in histological assays.
非小细胞肺癌是一种侵袭性极强的实体肿瘤，术后复发导致其预后较差。对非小细胞肺癌样本进行特异性肿瘤及免疫标志物分析，是患者术后预后评估和治疗决策的关键环节。常规组织学检测存在一定局限性，因此需要开发能够快速识别非小细胞肺癌亚型、准确鉴定多种标志物的新型诊断工具。本研究开发了一种离体分离技术，可从非小细胞肺癌（腺癌与鳞状细胞癌）患者的手术肿瘤及肺组织样本中分离癌细胞与免疫细胞，通过罗曼诺夫斯基-吉姆萨染色及免疫荧光/免疫化学染色，对离体细胞样本及对应组织切片中的肿瘤特异性标志物与免疫相关标志物进行平行检测。结果显示，部分患者的PD-L1表达仅能通过离体分析检测到。肿瘤微环境中的免疫细胞谱分析揭示了患者肿瘤间免疫景观的显著差异，其中吸烟者肿瘤中同时表达促炎与抗炎细胞因子的巨噬细胞、中性粒细胞及嗜酸性粒细胞成为优势群体。本研究提出的离体分析技术可作为辅助诊断工具，用于快速检测完整肿瘤样本中的癌细胞与免疫细胞，并避免组织学检测中的假阴性结果。
肿瘤(癌症)患者之家