Usefulness and robustness of Immunoscore for personalized management of cancer patients

ABSTRACT

This review details the analytical performance characteristics of the consensus Immunoscore, measuring the immune response to cancer, improving the estimation of risk of recurrence, and predicting response to treatment for patients with colon cancer. The analytical validation of Immunoscore has been documented. Immunoscore is a robust, reproducible, quantitative, and standardized immune assay, with a high prognostic performance, independent of all of the prognostic markers currently used in clinical practice. Immunoscore evaluation within the tumor microenvironment is clinically relevant, and Immunoscore was recently introduced into ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for colon cancer and into the WHO classification of the Digestive System Tumors. This paves the way for the use of Immunoscore in clinical practice in colorectal tumors and likely soon in many other solid tumors.

KEYWORDS:

• Immunoscore
• tumor microenvironment
• cancer classification
• prognosis
• immunity
• predictive
• chemotherapy
• phase 3 trial

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by INSERM, AP-HP, University Paris Descartes, the Cancéropole Ile-de-France, the Cancer Research for Personalized Medicine (CARPEM), Paris Alliance of Cancer Research Institutes (PACRI), the LabEx Immunooncology, the National Cancer Institute of France (INCa; ref 2012-218), HalioDx for Immunoscore®, La Ligue Contre le Cancer, Association pour la Recherche contre le Cancer (ARC), The authors thank the patients, their caregivers, and the SITC Immunoscore consortium investigators.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

JG and FP have patents associated with the immune prognostic biomarkers. JG is co-founder of HalioDx biotech company. Immunoscore® a registered trademark from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) licensed to HalioDx.