Immune Phenotype Correlates With Survival in Patients With GBM Treated With Standard Temozolomide-based Therapy and Immunotherapy

Background/Aim: The need for more effective treatment modalities that can improve the clinical outcome of patients with glioblastoma multiforme remains imperative. Dendritic cell vaccination is a fast-developing treatment modality, currently under exploration. Functional immune cell subpopulations may play a role in the final outcome. Materials and Methods: Data from 101 patients drawn from the HGG-2010 trial, including baseline patient characteristics and fluorescence-activated cell sorting of immune cell subpopulations, were analyzed by statistical and machinelearning methods. Results: The analysis revealed strong correlations between immune profiles and overall survival, when the extent of resection and the vaccination schedule were used as stratification variables. Conclusion: A systematic, in silico workflow detecting strong and statistically significant correlations between overall survival and immune profilederived quantities obtained at the start of dendritic cell vaccination was devised. The derived correlations could serve as a basis for the identification of prognostic markers discriminating between potential long-and short-term survivors of patients with glioblastoma multiforme.