Neutrophils are short-lived white blood cells derived from bone marrow myeloid precursors. Attention to their potential role in human cancer has largely been ignored. New findings suggest that the role of neutrophils in cancer-related inflammation may need careful reappraisal of infiltration, polarization, and prognostic significance of neutrophils in human cancer [1]. Previous older studies have advocated a role of direct or antibody-dependent killing of tumor cells by this website neutrophils (recently reviewed
in [2]). One of the oldest reports of a potential anti-tumor effect of the innate immune system comes from William Coley (reviewed in [3]). He observed that patients with febrile streptococcal
infection within selleck inhibitor an ulcerated tumor had a better prognosis than patients with uninfected tumors. For obvious reasons, he was unable to explain the observations in immunology terms. Since Coley’s initial reports, knowledge about mechanisms in cellular immunity has increased. However, cancer therapy for invasive human cancer utilizing a neutrophil-mediated approach has not yet been established [4]. This review will focus on recently published articles regarding immunomonitoring of neutrophils in blood and tumor tissue in clinical trials comprising the main human tumor types, with a strong emphasis on independent prognostic relevance assessed by multivariate analyses. The first report of neutrophils as an adverse prognostic factor for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) was published in 1996 by Lopez Hanninen et al. [5], Table 1. In a series of 215 consecutive patients with mRCC treated with interleukin-2 (IL-2) based immunotherapy, elevated baseline blood neutrophils (>6 × 109/L) was identified as an independent risk factor of short overall survival (OS). Subsequently, the Groupe Français d‘Immunothérapie
published in 2002 results comprising 782 patients in successive multicenter trials using cytokine regimens [6]. Analyses were performed on this large prospective database to identify prognostic factors for survival and predictive factors for progression. Elevated baseline neutrophil count (>7.5 × 109/L) was independently predictive of short Linifanib (ABT-869) survival in a multivariate analysis. The authors also identified four independent factors predictive of rapid progression under cytokine treatment: presence of hepatic metastases, <1 year from renal tumor to metastases, more than one metastatic site, and elevated baseline neutrophil counts (>7.5 × 109/L). Patients who combined at least three of these factors had >80% probability of rapid progression despite treatment. The authors stated that these results should be taken into account when making the decision to treat with cytokines.