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The Role of Circulating T Follicular Helper Cells and Regulatory Cells in Non‐Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients
Author(s) -
Guo Z.,
Liang H.,
Xu Y.,
Liu L.,
Ren X.,
Zhang S.,
Wei S.,
Xu P.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.934
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3083
pISSN - 0300-9475
DOI - 10.1111/sji.12566
Subject(s) - lung cancer , medicine , follicular phase , stage (stratigraphy) , immune system , pathogenesis , carcinoma , cancer , lung , gastroenterology , pathology , immunology , biology , paleontology
T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells are identified as the new subset of immune cells. This study aims to investigate the role of circulating Tfh cells ( cT fh) and Tfr ( cT fr) cells in the pathogenesis of non‐small cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ). A total of 27 NSCLC patients and 19 age and sex‐matched healthy controls were enrolled. The percentage of cT fh and cT fr was detected by flow cytometric analysis. Compared to healthy controls, a significantly higher percentage of both cT fh and cT fr cells were observed in NSCLC patients (for cT fh, 18.88% ± 16.84% versus 5.98% ± 3.70%, P < 0.01; for cT fr, 2.67% ± 2.20% versus 1.14% ± 0.76%, P < 0.01). Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between cT fh/ cT fr ratio and age in NSCLC patients ( P < 0.05). When taking age 60 as a cut‐off, the percentage of both cT fh cells and cT fr cells were higher in older patients than younger patients. Moreover, our data showed there was lower percentage of cT fh cells in NSCLC patients with early stage disease (I and II) (12.10% ± 12.22%) than that in advanced stage disease (III and IV) (30.41% ± 17.87%) ( P < 0.01). However, no significant relationship was observed between cT fr cells and clinical stage in NSCLC patients. A higher percentage of cT fh cells was observed in patients with squamous cell carcinoma compared with adenocarcinoma (31.70% ± 20.73% versus. 13.48% ± 11.78%, P < 0.05). Taken together, there was significantly higher percentage of cT fh and cT fr cells in NSCLC patients. cT fh and cT fr cells might play an important role in the pathogenesis of NSCLC patients.