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. 2018 May 26;391(10135):2128-2139.
doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30789-X. Epub 2018 May 10.

International validation of the consensus Immunoscore for the classification of colon cancer: a prognostic and accuracy study

Franck Pagès  1 Bernhard Mlecnik  2 Florence Marliot  3 Gabriela Bindea  4 Fang-Shu Ou  5 Carlo Bifulco  6 Alessandro Lugli  7 Inti Zlobec  7 Tilman T Rau  7 Martin D Berger  8 Iris D Nagtegaal  9 Elisa Vink-Börger  9 Arndt Hartmann  10 Carol Geppert  10 Julie Kolwelter  10 Susanne Merkel  11 Robert Grützmann  11 Marc Van den Eynde  12 Anne Jouret-Mourin  13 Alex Kartheuser  14 Daniel Léonard  14 Christophe Remue  14 Julia Y Wang  15 Prashant Bavi  16 Michael H A Roehrl  17 Pamela S Ohashi  18 Linh T Nguyen  18 SeongJun Han  18 Heather L MacGregor  18 Sara Hafezi-Bakhtiari  19 Bradly G Wouters  18 Giuseppe V Masucci  20 Emilia K Andersson  20 Eva Zavadova  21 Michal Vocka  21 Jan Spacek  21 Lubos Petruzelka  21 Bohuslav Konopasek  21 Pavel Dundr  22 Helena Skalova  22 Kristyna Nemejcova  22 Gerardo Botti  23 Fabiana Tatangelo  23 Paolo Delrio  24 Gennaro Ciliberto  25 Michele Maio  26 Luigi Laghi  27 Fabio Grizzi  28 Tessa Fredriksen  4 Bénédicte Buttard  4 Mihaela Angelova  4 Angela Vasaturo  4 Pauline Maby  4 Sarah E Church  29 Helen K Angell  30 Lucie Lafontaine  4 Daniela Bruni  4 Carine El Sissy  3 Nacilla Haicheur  31 Amos Kirilovsky  3 Anne Berger  32 Christine Lagorce  32 Jeffrey P Meyers  5 Christopher Paustian  33 Zipei Feng  33 Carmen Ballesteros-Merino  33 Jeroen Dijkstra  9 Carlijn van de Water  9 Shannon van Lent-van Vliet  9 Nikki Knijn  9 Ana-Maria Mușină  34 Dragos-Viorel Scripcariu  34 Boryana Popivanova  35 Mingli Xu  35 Tomonobu Fujita  35 Shoichi Hazama  36 Nobuaki Suzuki  37 Hiroaki Nagano  37 Kiyotaka Okuno  38 Toshihiko Torigoe  39 Noriyuki Sato  39 Tomohisa Furuhata  40 Ichiro Takemasa  40 Kyogo Itoh  41 Prabhu S Patel  42 Hemangini H Vora  42 Birva Shah  42 Jayendrakumar B Patel  42 Kruti N Rajvik  42 Shashank J Pandya  42 Shilin N Shukla  42 Yili Wang  43 Guanjun Zhang  43 Yutaka Kawakami  35 Francesco M Marincola  44 Paolo A Ascierto  45 Daniel J Sargent  5 Bernard A Fox  46 Jérôme Galon  47
Affiliations

International validation of the consensus Immunoscore for the classification of colon cancer: a prognostic and accuracy study

Franck Pagès et al. Lancet. .

Abstract

Background: The estimation of risk of recurrence for patients with colon carcinoma must be improved. A robust immune score quantification is needed to introduce immune parameters into cancer classification. The aim of the study was to assess the prognostic value of total tumour-infiltrating T-cell counts and cytotoxic tumour-infiltrating T-cells counts with the consensus Immunoscore assay in patients with stage I-III colon cancer.

Methods: An international consortium of 14 centres in 13 countries, led by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, assessed the Immunoscore assay in patients with TNM stage I-III colon cancer. Patients were randomly assigned to a training set, an internal validation set, or an external validation set. Paraffin sections of the colon tumour and invasive margin from each patient were processed by immunohistochemistry, and the densities of CD3+ and cytotoxic CD8+ T cells in the tumour and in the invasive margin were quantified by digital pathology. An Immunoscore for each patient was derived from the mean of four density percentiles. The primary endpoint was to evaluate the prognostic value of the Immunoscore for time to recurrence, defined as time from surgery to disease recurrence. Stratified multivariable Cox models were used to assess the associations between Immunoscore and outcomes, adjusting for potential confounders. Harrell's C-statistics was used to assess model performance.

Findings: Tissue samples from 3539 patients were processed, and samples from 2681 patients were included in the analyses after quality controls (700 patients in the training set, 636 patients in the internal validation set, and 1345 patients in the external validation set). The Immunoscore assay showed a high level of reproducibility between observers and centres (r=0·97 for colon tumour; r=0·97 for invasive margin; p<0·0001). In the training set, patients with a high Immunoscore had the lowest risk of recurrence at 5 years (14 [8%] patients with a high Immunoscore vs 65 (19%) patients with an intermediate Immunoscore vs 51 (32%) patients with a low Immunoscore; hazard ratio [HR] for high vs low Immunoscore 0·20, 95% CI 0·10-0·38; p<0·0001). The findings were confirmed in the two validation sets (n=1981). In the stratified Cox multivariable analysis, the Immunoscore association with time to recurrence was independent of patient age, sex, T stage, N stage, microsatellite instability, and existing prognostic factors (p<0·0001). Of 1434 patients with stage II cancer, the difference in risk of recurrence at 5 years was significant (HR for high vs low Immunoscore 0·33, 95% CI 0·21-0·52; p<0·0001), including in Cox multivariable analysis (p<0·0001). Immunoscore had the highest relative contribution to the risk of all clinical parameters, including the American Joint Committee on Cancer and Union for International Cancer Control TNM classification system.

Interpretation: The Immunoscore provides a reliable estimate of the risk of recurrence in patients with colon cancer. These results support the implementation of the consensus Immunoscore as a new component of a TNM-Immune classification of cancer.

Funding: French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, the LabEx Immuno-oncology, the Transcan ERAnet Immunoscore European project, Association pour la Recherche contre le Cancer, CARPEM, AP-HP, Institut National du Cancer, Italian Association for Cancer Research, national grants and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

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