Spatial Distribution of Immune Cells in Tumors

ORAL

Abstract

The goal of immunotherapy is to mobilize the immune system to kill cancer cells. Immunotherapy is more effective and, in general, the prognosis is better, when more immune cells infiltrate the tumor. We describe various techniques we have developed to explore the question of whether the spatial distribution rather than just the density of immune cells in the tumor is important in forecasting whether cancer recurs. We apply our approach to immune cells in images of tumor tissue taken from (triple negative) breast cancer patients. We find that there is a distinct difference in the spatial distribution of immune cells between good clinical outcome (no recurrence of cancer within at least 5 years of diagnosis) and poor clinical outcome (recurrence within 3 years of diagnosis).

*This work was supported by Stand Up To Cancer, The V Foundation, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The work of CCY and JCW was also supported in part by the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation.

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Presenters

  • Juliana Wortman

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine

Authors

  • Juliana Wortman

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine

  • Ting-Fang He

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Shawn Solomon

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Robert Zhang

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Anthony Rosario

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Roger Wang

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Travis Y. Tu

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Daniel Schmolze

    • Department of Pathology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Yuan Yuan

    • Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Susan E. Yost

    • Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Xuefei Li

    • Department of Bioengineering, Rice University

  • Herbert Levine

    • Rice Univ
    • Northeastern University
    • Department of Bioengineering, Rice University

  • Gurinder Atwal

    • Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  • Peter P. Lee

    • Department of Immuno-Oncology, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Clare Yu

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine
    • University of California, Irvine