Immune Score Predicts Outcomes of Gastric Cancer Patients Treated with Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy

Background. Substantial evidence has demonstrated that tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are correlated with patient prognosis. The TIL-based immune score (IS) affects prognosis in various cancers, but its prognostic impact in gastric cancer (GC) patients treated with adjuvant chemoradiotherapy remains unclear. Methods. A total of 101 GC patients who received chemoradiotherapy after gastrectomy were retrospectively analyzed in this study. Immunohistochemistry staining for CD3+ and CD8+ T-cell counts in both tumor center (CT) and invasive margin (IM) regions was built into the IS. Patients were then divided into three groups based on their differential IS levels. The correlation between IS and clinical parameters was analyzed. The prognostic impact of IS and clinical parameters was evaluated using Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to compare the area under the curve (AUC) of IS with other clinical parameters. Nomograms for disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) prediction were constructed based on the identified parameters. Results. Finally, 20 (19.8%), 57 (56.4%), and 24 (23.8%) GC patients were identified with low, intermediate, and high IS levels, respectively. GC patients with higher IS levels exhibited better DFS ( p p p p