CD56 Expression on Natural Killer Cells and its Correlation with Clinical Outcomes in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients
Hendry Irawan*
Surgical Oncology Division, Department of Surgery, Medical Faculty Universitas Udayana, Bali, Indonesia.
Corresponding Author E-mail: hendry_irawan@rocketmail.com
Abstract: Background: Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the oral cavity can grow quickly and the response to therapy in each patient is different. The immune system plays a major role in the development of cancer cells, especially in SCC of the oral cavity. Natural killer cells (NK cells) play a major role in both innate immunity and adaptive immunity. Objective: To evaluation CD56 expression on NK cells and the correlation with clinical outcomes in oral squamous cell carcinoma. Methods: We collect the literature from Journal, Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, Crossref, and Google Scholar. CD56 expression was examined by immunohistochemical staining in cancer tissue. On each slide, the number of positive stained cells was read on 5 high power fields (HPF) 400x, then the number of cells stained on each HPF was added up and section 5. Cells with positive CD56 showed brown staining in the intracytoplasm regardless of the intensity of the staining. Results: High CD56 expression was associated with good overall survival (OS) (HR 0.27; 95%CI 0.12-0.60; p=0.001), good progression-free survival (PFS). (HR 0.35; 95%CI 0.17-0.74; p=0.005), and good distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (HR 0.27; 95%CI 0.13-0.55; p=0.0004) in head and neck SCC. Other study in oropharyngeal SCC, that high CD56 expression had good OS (HR 0.32; 95%CI 0.10-0.96; p=0.04). The meta-analysis study showed that the CD56 marker on NK cell was a good prognostic marker for OS in head and neck SCC (HR 0.19, 95%CI 0.11-0.35, p<0.00001). Conclusion: NK cells with CD56 expression will increase cytotoxic function. The presence of CD56 can increase infiltration into tumor tissue. Based on these data, CD56 on NK cells can be used as an indicator of cancer prognosis in patients with SCC of the oral cavity. Apart from that, it can be used as an immunotherapy target which functions to restore the immune response against cancer cells.
Keywords: CD56; Cytotoxicity; NK cell; Immune Response; Oral Cavity Cancer; Prognostic Marker; Squamous Cell Carcinoma; Tumor Infiltration Back to TOC