Table 3. Studies examining the prognostic impact of infiltrating immune cells in melanoma.
| Study | Number | Result | Association | Cell type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Kakavand et al, 2015) | 60 | Positive correlation between CD3, CD4 and CD8 cells in sentinel node and DFS/OS; PD1+ lymphocytes associated with worse outcome | Positive association | CD3, CD4 and CD8 |
| (Saldanha et al, 2017) | 655 | Higher TILs are associated with better prognosis; confirms value of a simplified numerical TIL scoring system | Positive association | TIL |
| (Park and Kim, 2017) | 177 | Density of lymphocytes in the peritumoural and intratumoural regions were both prognostic | Positive association | TIL |
| (Obeid et al, 2016) | 147 | Expression of PD-L1 and PD-L2 correlated with increasing densities of immune cells. PD-L2 expression associated with improved OS | Positive association | PD-L2 and TILs |
| (Weiss et al, 2016) | 1241 | Melanomas with brisk TILs are defined by an immunostimulatory gene expression profile and improved prognosis compared with melanomas with non-brisk or absent TILs | Positive association | TILs |
| (Garg et al, 2016) | 57 | B cells are associated with a significantly better overall survival in patients with cutaneous primary melanomas of >1 mm Breslow depth | Positive association | B cells |
| (Bosisio et al, 2016) | 710 | Sheets/clusters of plasma cells associated with worse prognosis than melanomas without plasma cells | Negative association | Plasma cells |
| (Messaoudene et al, 2015) | 39 | NK cells in SLN associated with higher risk of relapse; NK cells did not correlate with thickness of primary but with patient age | Negative association | NK cells |
| (Fortes et al, 2015) | 4133 | High levels TILs associated with improved OS | Positive association | TIL |
| (Song et al, 2015) | 82 | TILs decreased the risk of distant metastases in oral mucosal melanoma | Positive association | TIL |
| (Donizy et al, 2015) | 104 | High levels TILs associated with improved OS | Positive association | TIL |
| (Eriksson et al, 2015) | 4237 | TILs demonstrated no prognostic value for survival | No association | TIL |
| (Thomas et al, 2013) | 3330 | High levels TILs associated with improved OS | Positive association | TIL |
| (Cintolo et al, 2013) | 161 | Absence of TIL was associated with worse DSS; In radial growth phase presence of TIL with regression was associated with a poor prognosis | Positive association | TIL |
| (Lee et al, 2013) | 90 | Brisk TILs were associated with improved prognosis in acral melanoma | Positive association | TIL |
| (Grotz et al, 2013) | 250 | TILs in elderly melanoma patients predicts both SLN metastasis and improved melanoma-specific outcomes | Positive association | TIL |
| (Azimi et al, 2012) | 1865 | TIL grade is an independent predictor of OS. Pronounced TIL infiltrate associated with excellent prognosis | Positive association | TIL |
| (Erdag et al, 2012) | 147 | Higher densities of CD8+ T cells correlated best with survival, a higher density of CD45+ leukocytes, T cells, and B cells also correlated with increased survival | Positive association | CD8, CD45, T cells and B cells |
| (Ladanyi et al, 2011) | 106 | CD20+ B cells most often found in peritumoural stroma, correlated with activated T lymphocytes and high number of these cells provided OS advantage | Positive association | CD20 B cells and activated T cells |
| (Knol et al, 2011) | 102 | High Foxp3 expression using qPCR predicts for worse progression free survival in stage III melanoma patients | Negative association | FOXP3 |
| (Burton et al, 2011) | 515 | TIL response is a significant predictor of SLN metastasis but is not a major predictor of DFS or OS | No association | TIL |
Abbreviations: DFS=disease-free survival; DSS=disease specific survival; NK=natural killer; OS=overall survival; SLN=sentinal lymph node; TIL=tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes.