Potential Predictive Immune and Metabolic Biomarkers of Tumor Microenvironment Regarding Pathological and Clinical...

The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in therapy response and modulation of immunologic surveillance. Adjuvant immunotherapy has recently been introduced in post-surgery treatment of locally advanced esophageal cancer (EC) with residual pathological disease after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT). F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT) remains a valuable imaging tool to assess therapy response and to visualize metabolic TME; however, there is still a paucity in understanding the interaction between the TME and nCRT response. This systematic review investigated the potential of TME biomarkers and ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT features to predict pathological and clinical response (CR) after nCRT in EC.

A literature search of the Medline and Embase electronic databases identified 4190 studies. Studies regarding immune and metabolic TME biomarkers and ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT features were included for predicting pathological response (PR) and/or CR after nCRT. Separate analyses were performed for ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT markers and these TME biomarkers.

The final analysis included 21 studies-10 about immune and metabolic markers alone and 11 with additional ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT features. High CD8 infiltration before and after nCRT, and CD3 and CD4 infiltration after nCRT, generally correlated with better PR. A high expression of tumoral or stromal programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) after nCRT was generally associated with poor PR. Moreover, total lesion glycolysis (TLG) and metabolic tumor volume (MTV) of the primary tumor were potentially predictive for clinical and PR.

CD8, CD4, CD3, and PD-L1 are promising immune markers in predicting PR, whereas TLG and MTV are potential ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT features to predict clinical and PR after nCRT in EC.