| Summary: | Harijadi - High number of granzyme B expressing CTLs predicts worst prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients
Background: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) characteristically harbors many tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In biopsies of Hodgkin or anaplastic large cell lymphoma many activated CTLs are related to a very poor clinical outcome, suggesting that in these cases with a strong CTL mediated anti-tumor cell response, selection occurs for tumor cells that have become resistant to CTL and chemo and/or radiotherapy induced apoptosis. Only activated CTLs and natural killer cells express granzyme B.
Objective. Since, similar to lymphomas, the prognosis of NPC patients depends primarily on the sensitivity of tumor cells to radio- and/or chemotherapy, this study investigated whether the presence of many tumor-infiltrating activated CTLs in tumor biopsies also predicts poor prognosis in NPC patients.
Methods: The study investigated 39 specimens of Indonesian NPC patients that fulfilled the following criteria
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