Lymphocytic Infiltration in Undifferentiated Nasopharyngeal Cancer

Abstract

The lymphoid infiltrate is beneficial in undifferentiated NPC, and its presence may deter regional metastasis of cancer cells to the cervical nodes.

Prevalent somatic BRCA1 mutations shape clinically relevant genomic patterns of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Southeast Europe

“…Although we cannot exclude the exosomal origin of these mutations, mutations and genomic instability induced by EBV in transforming and cancerous B lymphocytes justify the development of a broad mutation spectrum in the lymphocytic component. Importantly though, the lymphocytic component in NPC is mostly composed of cytotoxic T lymphocytes that are traditionally not considered to be infected by EBV or to produce lytic phase EBV proteins. It may be that this cellular environment is genetically altered prior to viral activation or perhaps triggers the virus to become pathogenic, possibly through the long proposed cell–cell fusion .…”

The ratio of weight loss to planning target volume significantly impacts setup errors in nasopharyngeal cancer patients undergoing helical tomotherapy with daily megavoltage computed tomography

“…19 Shrinkage of the gross tumor volume can lead to anatomy shifts and increased setup errors. A previous study using electronic portal imaging in 20 patients undergoing definitive IMRT showed setup displacements of > 3 mm occurred more frequently in patients with bulky nodal disease.…”

The interplay of host genetic factors and Epstein-Barr virus in the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

“…Thus, data analysis and interpretation remain the bottleneck of cancer genomic studies due to the complexities of NGS data and the cancer genome. Another challenge in NPC genomic study is significant heterogeneity and lymphocyte infiltration in the specimens, which might mask the true biological events in tumor cells [58] . To minimize false-negative errors, the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) guidelines suggest that the tumor cell content of a sample be at least 60%–80%.…”