Background/aim: Testicular cancers, particularly seminomas and non-seminomas, generally have a favorable prognosis, although a small subset of patients experience mortality. Current knowledge of clinical markers associated with relapse and poor prognosis in seminoma is limited. Chemokines, key proteins in the tumor microenvironment, are underexplored in seminoma prognosis. Additionally, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), which play a critical role in cancer prognosis, require further investigation in the context of seminoma.
Patients and methods: Samples from 25 seminoma patients and 24 control patients who underwent orchiectomy were immunohistochemically (IHC) stained for chemokines CXCR4, CXCR5, and their ligands CXCL12, CXCL13, and the proliferation marker Ki-67. The associations between IHC results and clinical presentations were examined.
Results: Chemokine profiles differed between seminoma and normal testis. The expression of chemokines in TILs in seminoma samples was especially over-expressed. The cytoplasmic expression of CXCL13 in TILs multiplied by the percentage of TILs in each sample, appeared to approach statistical significance concerning the likelihood of relapse.
Conclusion: The involvement of TILs in seminoma biology warrants further investigation, especially their role in the tumor micro-environment and pathogenesis. Chemokine and Ki-67 expression in TILs could serve as potential markers for assessing seminoma prognosis.
Keywords: CXCL13; Ki-67 chemokines; Seminoma; TILs; cytokines; prognosis.
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