T cells can brighten prognosis

摘要

For more than half a century, pathologists have assessed the severity of a cancer using the same basic framework: tumour size, the cancer's presence in lymph nodes and whether it has spread to other parts of the body. Called TNM staging', the framework ranges from stage 1, which has a relatively good prognosis, to stage 4, which can require immediate and aggressive therapy. But researchers are now wondering whether it is time to add an V category to the test - by factoring in whether immune cells are present in or around the tumour. In 2006, Jerome Galon of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris and his colleagues found that the presence of T cells in or around colon cancers was associated with better patient outcomes.