Immune Surveillance Tissue Antigen Profiling in Advanced Ovarian Cancer

Aim

A knowledge of tumor-related antigens associated with survival of patients with ovarian cancer could contribute toward the development of tests for early diagnosis and could provide targets for the design of novel immunotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer. We conducted a pilot immunohistochemical study to determine a group of antigens in ovarian tumor masses that correlate with survival.

Methods

We studied T-cell subsets and tumor antigens on 69 cases of paraffin-embedded patient blocks to determine if any correlated with survival in this disease. These were identified by staining for CD3, CD8, FoxP3, New York esophageal-1 (NY-ESO-1), melanoma-associated antigen (MAGE) A, cyclin E, and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) antigens in tissue when using specific antibodies.

Results

Study patients had a median age of 58 years and an overall survival of 31%. Infiltrating CD3⁺ T cells correlated with improved survival of patients (P = .002, log-rank test). The frequency of cyclin E, ICAM-1, CD8, and FoxP3 expressing cells were not statistically associated with survival. MAGE-A was expressed in 10 (45%) of 22 whole-tissue sections studied, and this expression correlated with decreased survival (P = .03, log-rank test). The presence and frequency of FoxP3 infiltrating suppressor T cells was associated with high-stage disease (P = .02, χ² test; P = .03, Wilcoxon test).

Conclusions

The significance of CD3 T cells in tumor tissue may be primarily associated with an active antitumor immune response. MAGE-A family members may represent successful antigens for immunotherapeutic targeting in ovarian cancer.