Tertiary lymphoid structure‐related RNA indicator as metastasis risk factor in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

作者：Zhaozheng Hou, Ping Feng, Chi‐Leung Chiang, Kazi Anisha Islam, Songran Liu, Ying Wang, Yingpei Zhang, Michael King‐Yung Chung, Ngar‐Woon Kam, Zilu Huang, Victor Lee, Anne W.M. Lee, Dora Lai‐Wan Kwong, Wai Tong Ng, Jason W.H. Wong, Yunfei Xia, Wei Dai · 发表于：Clinical and Translational Medicine · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/ctm2.70539 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Head and Neck Cancer Studies、Ferroptosis and cancer prognosis、MicroRNA in disease regulation

BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients who develop distant metastasis have significantly reduced survival rates. Therefore, understanding of metastasis and identifying high-risk patients are important, and a robust predictive model for accurately assessing the distant-metastasis risk before treatment is needed for personalised treatment. METHODS: NPC patients diagnosed at four Hong Kong public hospitals and at Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou were selected. Patients were divided into two training cohorts (n = 77 and 30, respectively) and one testing cohort (n = 70). Two independent NPC cohorts collected from Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center (n = 88), and a randomised phase III trial (NPC-0501) in Hong Kong (n = 81) were used for external validation of the model-based risk prediction. RESULTS: Our RNA-based risk score could stratify the patient groups into high and low risk of metastasis and disease progression in two independent external validation cohorts. In predicting NPC 3-year distant metastasis, the score significantly improved the area under the curve from 84.8% to 90.4% when combined with the known prognostic clinical parameters. This RNA-based risk score was highly associated with dysregulated functions of B cells and T helper 17 cells and reduced plasma B cells and tertiary lymphoid structure (TLS) formation. The analysis of biopsy samples revealed a significant enrichment of the TLS in non-metastatic NPC patients. CONCLUSIONS: This...