Abstract:
Objective To evaluate the value of immune microenvironment of microvascular invasion in predicting HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) prognosis.
Methods A cohort of patients primarily diagnosed as HBV-related HCC between March 2012 and November 2013 were included. All patients had a history of HBV infection and no basis for other liver diseases, and were treated with simple surgery. No intervention, chemoradiotherapy and other treatment options were provided after surgery. Patients were followed up regularly, with the last follow-up until November 30th, 2018. Both overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) were primary endpoint indexes. Patients were divided into MVI group and non-MVI group according to the postoperative pathology. Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to explore the effect of MVI on the prognosis of patients. Further, the postoperative pathology of patients with MVI was analyzed, and the digital pathological sections were used to quantitatively analyze the number of T, B lymphocytes and other immune cells in the local tissue of tuntor thrombi, to explore the effect of the local immune microenvironment of cancer thrombi on the prognosis of patients.
Results Totally, 175 qualified patients (68 cases in MVI group and 107 cases in non-MVI group). By the end of follow-up, 35 cases died and 88 cases recurred. Univariate/multivariate studies showed that the MVI in HBV-related HCC increased the risk of recurrence (P < 0.05). ROC analysis showed that CD4+ T cells or CD8+T cells in tumor thrombi had predictive value for RFS of patients while their cutoffs were determined as 0.208 and 0.465, respectively. Based on the cutoffs, the survival analysis indicated that those MVI cases infiltrated with a higher number of CD4+ T cells or CD8+ T cells were correlated with a better RFS (P < 0.05).
Conclusions Microvascular invasion is an independent RFS factor for HBV-related HCC. The number of CD4+ or CD8+ T cells in the tumor thrombi may be negatively correlated with the RFS risk of the primary HCC patients.