Intratumoral T cells, recurrence, and survival in epithelial ovarian cancer.

TLDR: The presence of intratumoral T cells correlates with improved clinical outcome in advanced ovarian carcinoma and was associated with increased expression of interferon-gamma, interleukin-2, and lymphocyte-attracting chemokines within the tumor.

Abstract: Background Although tumor-infiltrating T cells have been documented in ovarian carcinoma, a clear association with clinical outcome has not been established. Methods We performed immunohistochemical analysis of 186 frozen specimens from advanced-stage ovarian carcinomas to assess the distribution of tumor-infiltrating T cells and conducted outcome analyses. Molecular analyses were performed in some tumors by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results CD3+ tumor-infiltrating T cells were detected within tumor-cell islets (intratumoral T cells) in 102 of the 186 tumors (54.8 percent); they were undetectable in 72 tumors (38.7 percent); the remaining 12 tumors (6.5 percent) could not be evaluated. There were significant differences in the distributions of progression-free survival and overall survival according to the presence or absence of intratumoral T cells (P<0.001 for both comparisons). The five-year overall survival rate was 38.0 percent among patients whose tumors contained T cells and 4.5 percent ...