Chinese Journal of Clinical Anatomy ›› 2021, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (1): 82-89.doi: 10.13418/j.issn.1001-165x.2021.01.016

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The prognostic role of immunoscore in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Zhang Haonan1,2, Zhang Linzhi2,3, Gao Wei2, Xu Yan2, Yang Xueling2, Yu Haipeng2, Xing Wengeng2, Si Tongguo2   

  1. 1. Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin Institute of Imaging Medicine, Tianjin 300192;  2. Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy of Tianjin, Tianjin’s Clinical Research Center for Cancer Tianjin 300060, China;  3. The Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100039, China
  • Received:2019-12-26 Online:2021-01-25 Published:2021-01-27

Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of immunoscore and PD-L1 in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC), and to analyze the relationship between the expression of PD-L1 and immunoscore and the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of HCC. Methods Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression of immunoscore and PD-L1 in 61 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma tissue, and to analyze the relationship between the expression of immunoscore and PD-L1 in hepatocellular carcinoma and different clinicopathological features and prognosis.Results The expression rate of high-immunoscore was 26.2%, the low-immunoscore expression rate was 73.8%. In clinical indicators,the positive expression rate of immunoscore was negatively related to patient's preoperative AFP level (P<0.005), and intrahepatic recurrence (P<0.05), but not to factors of patient’s age, gender, tumor size, differentiation, and  non-vascular invasion correlated (P>0.05). Kaplan–Meier analysis presented that the immunoscore showed good stratification between high-immunoscore and low-immunoscore groups in both overall survival (P<0.01) and progression-free survival (P<0.01), respectively. The positive expression rate of PD-L1 in hepatocellular carcinoma was 44.3%, which was significantly higher than that in normal control group (P<0.01).Kaplan-Meier analysis presented that the PD-L1-positive patients was significantly lower in patients with negative PD-L1-negative patients. In clinical indicators,the positive expression rate of PD-L1 was negatively related to patient’s immunoscore (P<0.01).Conclusions The expression of immunoscore can be used as an important prognostic maker for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Patients with high-immunoscore are significantly associated with a prolonged OS and PFS, however patients with low-immunoscore are more likely to occur early recurrence, prognosis is even worse. The positive expression rate of PD-L1 is negatively related to patient’s immunoscore.

Key words: Immunoscore,  PD-L1,  Prognosis,  Hepatocellular carcinoma

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