The prognostic landscape of tumor-infiltrating immune cells in lung squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Exploring novel biomarkers and developing effective therapeutic strategies can improve the prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) in the future. The prognostic value of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) in solid tumors has been extensively studied. However, the landscape of TICs involved in the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), especially in LUSC, remains unclear and should be systematically investigated. METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed the immune-related transcriptional profiles of 490 LUSC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort. Using the CIBERSORT method, TICs were evaluated and examined for their association with overall survival (OS) in LUSC. RESULTS: Out of the 27 TICs, 14 were correlated with prognosis in LUSC. A novel prognostic model characterized by fewer memory B cells and more central memory CD8 T cells, regulatory T cells (Tregs), and plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) infiltration predicted poor OS in LUSC with high accuracy. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year areas under the curve (AUC) were 0.95, 0.98, and 0.96, respectively, in the training cohort. This finding was further validated in the validation cohort, where the 1-, 3-, and 5-year AUCs were 0.95, 0.98, and 0.95, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These findings may provide more effective prognostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for the immunotherapy of LUSC.