An individualized immune signature of pretreatment biopsies predicts pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and outcomes in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

No clinically available biomarkers can predict pathological complete response (pCR) for esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs) with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT). Considering that antitumor immunity status is an important determinant for nCRT, we performed an integrative analysis of immune-related gene profiles from pretreatment biopsies and constructed the first individualized immune signature for pCR and outcome prediction of ESCCs through a multicenter analysis. During the discovery phase, 14 differentially expressed immune-related genes (DEIGs) with greater than a twofold change between pCRs and less than pCRs ( < 0.05). This is the first, validated, and clinically applicable individualized immune signature of pCR and outcome prediction for ESCCs with nCRT. Further prospective validation may facilitate the combination of nCRT and immunotherapy.