Personalized Immunotherapy for Cancers

A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 October 2024 | Viewed by 807

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Edwin L. Steele Laboratories, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Interests: cancer therapy; immune checkpoint; immunotherapy; immune suppression
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Edwin L. Steele Laboratories, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Interests: exercise physiology; tumor–host interactions; tumor microenvironment; immuno-oncology; vascular biology; cardio-oncology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Immunotherapy revolutionized and renewed hope in cancer care and management. However, unlike many other therapies, immunotherapy is not tailored to individual needs, as we are still learning how to expand the benefits of immunotherapy. A path to the personalization of immunotherapy is to find how the disease and host interact and how the therapy disrupts their interaction. Therefore, we aim to answer the following questions within the scope of our Special Issue: (1) what are the metabolic features that impact the success of the immunotherapy (e.g., obesity, underlying morbidities, and …)? (2) What are the biomarkers that are linked to resistance? (3) Are cancer targets (genetic, epigenetic, and proteome) altered with the standard of care, and are we developing modalities that relate to the right target? (4) How can we model the disease simply and comprehensively (complex in vitro and appropriate preclinical models recapitulating patients)? Tapping into current knowledge bases to understand these questions may pave the way to personalized immunotherapy.

Dr. Zohreh Amoozgar
Dr. Igor Lucas Gomes-Santos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cancer immunotherapy
  • tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes
  • neoantigens
  • adoptive cell transfer
  • gene expression profiling
  • personalized medicine
  • biomarkers
  • targeted therapy

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 3838 KiB  
Article
Contrasting Roles of Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Expression in Tumor and Stroma in Prognosis of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma
by Tomohiro Murakami, Eisuke Booka, Satoru Furuhashi, Yuki Sakai, Kenichi Sekimori, Ryoma Haneda, Mayu Fujihiro, Tomohiro Matsumoto, Yoshifumi Morita, Hirotoshi Kikuchi, Yoshihiro Hiramatsu, Satoshi Baba and Hiroya Takeuchi
Cancers 2024, 16(6), 1135; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers16061135 - 13 Mar 2024
Viewed by 642
Abstract
The assessment of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has become increasingly important with the rise of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, challenges persist, including subjective interpretation and the unclear significance of staining intensity, as well as contrasting [...] Read more.
The assessment of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has become increasingly important with the rise of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, challenges persist, including subjective interpretation and the unclear significance of staining intensity, as well as contrasting roles in tumoral and stromal regions. Our study enhances the understanding of PD-L1 in ESCCs by analyzing its expression in tumors and stroma with H-scores, highlighting its distinct clinicopathological impacts. In a retrospective cohort of 194 ESCC specimens from surgical resection, we quantified PD-L1 expression in tumoral and stromal compartments using H-scores, analyzing whole slide images with digital pathology analysis software. Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated that higher PD-L1 expression is significantly associated with improved postoperative overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) in both tumoral and stromal areas. Multivariable analysis identified high tumoral PD-L1 expression as an independent prognostic factor for prolonged OS and RFS (HR = 0.47, p = 0.007; HR = 0.54, p = 0.022, respectively). In a separate analysis, high stromal PD-L1 expression was found to correlate with less advanced pathological stages and a prolonged response to cytotoxic chemotherapy, with no similar correlation found for ICI treatment response. This study reveals PD-L1’s contrasting role in the ESCC tumor immune microenvironment, impacting prognosis, tumor stage, and treatment response. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Personalized Immunotherapy for Cancers)
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