Neutrophil infiltration is a favorable prognostic factor in early stages of colon cancer

The tumor immune response has been proven critical to prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC), but studies on the prognostic role of neutrophil infiltration have shown contradictory results. The aim of this study was to elucidate the prognostic role of infiltrating neutrophils at different intratumoral subsites and in different molecular subgroups of CRC. The relations between neutrophil infiltration and infiltration of other immune cells (T-cell and macrophage subsets) were also addressed. Expression of the neutrophil marker CD66b was assessed by immunohistochemistry in 448 archival human tumor tissue samples from patients surgically resected for CRC. The infiltration of CD66b-positive cells was semi-quantitatively evaluated along the tumor invasive front, in the tumor center, and within the tumor epithelium (intraepithelial expression). We found that poor infiltration of CD66b-positive cells in the tumor front indicated a worse patient prognosis. The prognostic significance of CD66b infiltration was found to be mainly independent of tumor molecular characteristics and maintained significance in multivariable analysis of stage I-II colon cancers. We further analyzed the prognostic impact of CD66b-positive cells in relation to other immune markers (NOS2, CD163, Tbet, FOXP3, and CD8) and found that neutrophil infiltration, even though strongly correlated to infiltration of other immune cell subsets, had additional prognostic value. In conclusion, we find that low infiltration of neutrophils in the tumor front is an independent prognostic factor for a poorer patient prognosis in early stages of colon cancers. Further studies are needed to elucidate the biological role of neutrophils in colorectal carcinogenesis.