口腔扁平上皮癌における腫瘍血管面積定量化による生存転帰予測

Liyuan Yu^1,2, Fuyan Li^1,2, Jingfei Wang^1,2

¹Central Laboratory of Stomatology, Nanjing Stomatological Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.

Oral diseases

|December 22, 2025

要旨

Background:

Cancer cells remodel blood vessels to create a tumor-supportive environment; however, the spatial distribution of these vessels and their prognostic significance in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remain poorly defined.

Methods:

We established an open-source pipeline to quantify vascular area (VA) in both the inner tumor (InT) and invasive tumor front (ITF) regions from CD31-stained whole-slide images (discovery cohort, n = 66). The associations between VA and patient survival were assessed via univariate and multivariate analyses. Findings were validated in an independent cohort (n = 70) immunostained with CD34.

Results:

VA was significantly higher in the InT region compared to the ITF (p = 0.0079). A higher VA in the ITF was independently associated with favorable overall survival (discovery: HR 0.28, 95% CI 0.11-0.73, p = 0.009; validation: HR 0.18, 95% CI 0.07-0.47, p < 0.001) and disease-free survival (discovery: HR 0.34, 95% CI 0.14-0.81, p = 0.015; validation: HR 0.25, 95% CI 0.11-0.53, p < 0.001).

Conclusion:

Our findings provide the first evidence that high VA in the ITF is associated with a better prognosis in OSCC.

キーワード:

浸潤腫瘍前縁口腔扁平上皮癌予後因子腫瘍微小環境血管面積