Infiltration of CD40-positive tumor-associated macrophages indicates a favorable prognosis in colorectal cancer patients.
OBJECTIVE
Recently the role of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) on immunity has been variously discussed. We studied a series of cell surface antigens in TAMs in colorectal cancer tissues and their corresponding normal tissues using flow cytometry to find out prognostic indicators of these patients.


METHODS
We assessed the numbers of CD14+ macrophages positive for each of the cell surface antigens (CD80, CD86, HLA-DR, CD1a, CD40 and CD83) in cancer tissues and corresponding normal tissues among 31 patients with colorectal cancer, and performed the univariate and multivariate analysis to find out prognostic indicators for overall survival among the patients.


RESULTS
The numbers of CD80+, CD86+ and HLA-DR+ TAMs in the cancer tissues were higher than those in corresponding normal tissues. Inversely CD40+ and CD83+ macrophages in cancer tissues were less than those in normal tissues. With the multivariate analysis, the number of CD40+ TAMs, as well as lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis, was shown to be an independent prognostic factor of colorectal cancer patients.


CONCLUSIONS
The dense infiltration of CD40+ TAM in colorectal cancer tissues indicates a favorable prognosis, which suggests that CD40 plays an important role in the tumor immunity of colorectal cancer.
Department of Surgery, Miyagi Cancer Center, Miyagi, Japan.
Makoto
M
Kinouchi
Koh
K
Miura
Takayuki
T
Mizoi
Kazuyuki
K
Ishida
Wataru
W
Fujibuchi
Hiroyuki
H
Sasaki
Shinobu
S
Ohnuma
Kazuya
K
Saito
Yu
Y
Katayose
Takeshi
T
Naitoh
Fuyuhiko
F
Motoi
Ken-ichi
K
Shiiba
Shinichi
S
Egawa
Chikashi
C
Shibata
Michiaki
M
Unno
D000368:Aged; D019013:CD40 Antigens / Q000032:analysis* / Q000502:physiology; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis
D019013:CD40 Antigens