Comprehensive evaluation of methods to assess overall and cell-specific immune infiltrates in breast cancer.
Benchmarking
Breast cancer
Digital pathology
Immune infiltrate
Methodology
Methylome
Microscopy
Transcriptome
Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes
Journal
Breast cancer research : BCR
ISSN: 1465-542X
Titre abrégé: Breast Cancer Res
Pays: England
ID NLM: 100927353
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
26 12 2019
26 12 2019
Historique:
received:
05
08
2019
accepted:
16
12
2019
entrez:
28
12
2019
pubmed:
28
12
2019
medline:
19
5
2020
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Breast cancer (BC) immune infiltrates play a critical role in tumor progression and response to treatment. Besides stromal tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) which have recently reached level 1B evidence as a prognostic marker in triple negative BC, a plethora of methods to assess immune infiltration exists, and it is unclear how these compare to each other and if they can be used interchangeably. Two experienced pathologists scored sTIL, intra-tumoral TIL (itTIL), and 6 immune cell types (CD3 The concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) between pathologists for sTIL was very good (0.84) and for cell-specific immune infiltrates slightly lower (0.63-0.66). Comparison between tissue microarray and whole slide pathology scores revealed systematically higher values in whole slides (ratio 2.60-5.98). The Spearman correlations between microscopic sTIL and transcriptomic- or methylomic-based assessment of immune infiltrates were highly variable (r = 0.01-0.56). Similar observations were made for cell type-specific quantifications (r = 0.001-0.54). We observed a strong inter-method variability between the omics-derived estimations, which is further cell type dependent. Finally, we demonstrated that most methods more accurately identify highly infiltrated (sTIL ≥ 60%; area under the curve, AUC, 0.64-0.99) as compared to lowly infiltrated tumors (sTIL ≤ 10%; AUC 0.52-0.82). There is a lower inter-pathologist concordance for cell-specific quantification as compared to overall infiltration quantification. Microscopic assessments are underestimated when considering small cores (tissue microarray) instead of whole slides. Results further highlight considerable differences between the microscopic-, transcriptomic-, and methylomic-based methods in the assessment of overall and cell-specific immune infiltration in BC. We therefore call for extreme caution when assessing immune infiltrates using current methods and emphasize the need for standardized immune characterization beyond TIL.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
Breast cancer (BC) immune infiltrates play a critical role in tumor progression and response to treatment. Besides stromal tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) which have recently reached level 1B evidence as a prognostic marker in triple negative BC, a plethora of methods to assess immune infiltration exists, and it is unclear how these compare to each other and if they can be used interchangeably.
METHODS
Two experienced pathologists scored sTIL, intra-tumoral TIL (itTIL), and 6 immune cell types (CD3
RESULTS
The concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) between pathologists for sTIL was very good (0.84) and for cell-specific immune infiltrates slightly lower (0.63-0.66). Comparison between tissue microarray and whole slide pathology scores revealed systematically higher values in whole slides (ratio 2.60-5.98). The Spearman correlations between microscopic sTIL and transcriptomic- or methylomic-based assessment of immune infiltrates were highly variable (r = 0.01-0.56). Similar observations were made for cell type-specific quantifications (r = 0.001-0.54). We observed a strong inter-method variability between the omics-derived estimations, which is further cell type dependent. Finally, we demonstrated that most methods more accurately identify highly infiltrated (sTIL ≥ 60%; area under the curve, AUC, 0.64-0.99) as compared to lowly infiltrated tumors (sTIL ≤ 10%; AUC 0.52-0.82).
CONCLUSIONS
There is a lower inter-pathologist concordance for cell-specific quantification as compared to overall infiltration quantification. Microscopic assessments are underestimated when considering small cores (tissue microarray) instead of whole slides. Results further highlight considerable differences between the microscopic-, transcriptomic-, and methylomic-based methods in the assessment of overall and cell-specific immune infiltration in BC. We therefore call for extreme caution when assessing immune infiltrates using current methods and emphasize the need for standardized immune characterization beyond TIL.
Identifiants
pubmed: 31878981
doi: 10.1186/s13058-019-1239-4
pii: 10.1186/s13058-019-1239-4
pmc: PMC6933637
doi:
Substances chimiques
Biomarkers, Tumor
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
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