Infiltration of CD1a-Positive Dendritic Cells in Advanced Laryngeal Cancer Correlates with Unfavorable Outcomes Post-Laryngectomy

Abstract

Background: The prognosis of advanced laryngeal cancer is unfavorable despite the progress of multidisciplinary therapy. Dendritic cells (DCs) play a central role in antitumor immunity. Tumor-infiltrating CD1a+ DCs have been reported to be associated with clinical outcomes in carcinomas of various organs, but the clinical impact of CD1a+ DCs in laryngeal cancer has not been clear.Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the cases of 57 patients with Stage Ⅲ or Ⅳ laryngeal cancer who underwent a total laryngectomy. Immunohistochemistry for CD1a, S100, and CD8 was performed using representative resected specimens. CD1a+ DCs, S100+ DCs, and CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs) were evaluated, and we divided the cases into high and low groups by the cut-off of the median value for each of these three parameters.Results: Compared to the CD1a-low group, the CD1a-high group had more advanced cases and showed significantly worse disease-specific survival (DSS) (p=0.0082) and overall survival (OS) (p=0.0324). The analyses of S100 DCs and CD8+ CTLs revealed no significant impact on clinical outcomes. Multivariate analyses indicated that the infiltration of CD1a+ DCs ​​​is an independent unfavorable prognostic factor in both DSS (p=0.0093) and OS (p=0.0132).Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that the infiltration of CD1a+ DCs was associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes. It is not yet known why the presence of CD1a+ DCs lead to an unfavorable clinical outcome in laryngeal cancer. Further studies are necessary to validate our results and clarify the function(s) of tumor-infiltrating CD1a+ DCs.