IMC Trending Topics in Immuno-Oncology

A team at the University of Zurich used IMC to simultaneously quantify 35 biomarkers, resulting in 720 high-dimensional pathology images of tumor tissue from 352 patients with breast cancer. The findings show multicellular features of the tumor microenvironment and novel subgroups of breast cancer associated with distinct clinical outcomes, with the potential to inform patient-specific diagnosis.

• Jackson, H.W. et al. “The single-cell pathology landscape of breast cancer.” Nature 578 (2020): 615–620.

Biomarker discovery by IMC revealed significant association of 12 markers for progression-free survival and 7 markers for overall survival in patients with metastatic melanoma who received immunotherapy. A team from the Yale School of Medicine developed a newly designed analysis workflow using IMC and automated quantitative analysis software to find indicative factors of treatment response.

• Martinez-Morilla, S. et al. “Biomarker discovery in patients with immunotherapy-treated melanoma with Imaging Mass Cytometry™.” Clinical Cancer Research 27 (2021): 1,987–1,996.

Scientists at the National Cancer Center in Japan used IMC to examine the immune status of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in biliary tract cancer (BTC). Their findings show that tumor-infiltrating PD-1+CD8+ T cells were localized adjacent to tumor cells versus in the stroma of the TME. The team observed higher PD-1 expression by tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells in smaller tumors, indicating a sensitivity to PD-1 blockade, while large tumors became resistant. This data marks the potential application of PD-1 blockade therapy for early-stage BTC.

• Umemoto, K. et al. “The potential application of PD-1 blockade therapy for early-stage biliary tract cancer.” International Immunology 32 (2020): 273–281.