Immunophenotyping at the Time of Diagnosis Distinguishes Two Groups of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients: Implications for Adoptive Immunotherapy

摘要

Background: Adoptive immunotherapy with EBV-specific CTLs (EBV-CTL) has been used to treat EBV-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) but only a fraction of the patients shows noticeable clinical response. Patients and Methods: Sixty-seven newly diagnosed NPC patients from 2005 to 2007 and 21 healthy donors were collected. Immunological parameters and immune function of PBMCs and EBV-CTL were analyzed by flow cytometer analysis (FACS) and 51Cr releasing experiment; Molecular characteristics on NPC tumor cells were investigated by immunochemical staining and statistic analysis. Results: NPC patients can be classified into two groups based on the percentage of CD3+ T cells in peripheral blood before accepted any treatment, (>52.6%, mean-2SE from healthy controls, NPC Group 1; +CD8+ T-cells, CD3+CD4+ T-cells and CD3+CD45RO+ memory T cells, and increase of CD3-CD16+ NK cells compared to Group 1 patients and healthy controls (PConclusion: These findings demonstrate that NPC patients could be distinguished on the basis of their immune status which will affect the efficacy of EBV-CTL immunotherapy.