T‐cell activation is associated with high‐grade serous ovarian cancer survival
Abstract
Aim
High‐grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is an aggressive disease that is largely resistant to today's immunotherapies. Here, we aimed to investigate the prognostic significance of CTLA4, PD‐1, and T‐cell activation status in HGSOC.
Methods
Using a publicly accessed microarray dataset including 260 HGSOC samples, we calculated Kaplan–Meier survival curves for overall survival (OS), evaluated associations with multivariate Cox regression models to evaluate the associations, and summarized using a hazard ratio (HR). The correlations between PD‐1 gene expression and that of other genes were calculated by Pearson correlation.
Results
Multivariate survival analyses showed that high PD‐1 expression but not CTLA4 was associated with longer OS (HR = 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.52–0.91; p = 0.01), and that higher T‐cell activation score was associated with better outcome (HR = 0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.58–0.95; p = 0.02). The top three PD‐1 highly correlated genes were SIRPG (r = 0.90, p < 2E‐16), FASL (r = 0.89, p < 2E‐16), and CD8a (r = 0.87, p < 2E‐16). HGSOC patients' OS is positively associated T‐cell activation score and PD‐1 expression but not CTLA4.
Conclusion
T cell activation score may serve as a candidate for personalized immunotherapy in HGSOC. The application of anti‐PD‐1 therapy to HGSOC should be cautious.