Oral Oncol: Tumor-related macrophages can be used to predict the prognosis of head and neck squamous cancer

Tumor-related macrophages (TAMs) are one of the most abundant cells in the tumor microenvironmentSeveral studies have examined whether TAM markers, CD68 and CD163, can be used as prognostic factors in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCCHN)The system's review and meta-analysis aims to synthesize the available documentary evidence and study the role of CD68 plus CD163 and TAMs as prognostication factors of SCCHNthis systematic review is based on the guidelines reported in the Cochrane Manual and the Preferred Reporting Project (PRISMA) statement for systematic review and meta-analysisMeta analysis of total survival, disease-free survival and progression-free survival was tested using variance contrastBased on the presence of heterogeneity, a random effect model or a fixed effect model is usedBias risk assessments and subgroup analyses were also carried outresults showed that the high matrix expression of CD163 and TAMs was associated with overall survival difference (HR, 2.26; 95% CI: s1.47, 3.47) ;P 0.001) and progression survival (HR, 2.29; 95% CI: s1.11,4.71) ;P s 0.03)In contrast, the abundance of CD68-TAMs is independent of overall survival (HR, 1.25; 95% CI: .86, 1.80) ;P s 0.24) and disease-free survival (HR, 2.06; 95% CI: .84, 5.05) ;P s 0.11), the results of this study show that although the common macrophage marker CD68 plus analyzed by the IHC has no prognostic effect in SCCHN patients, the M2-like marker CD163 plus predicts the prognosis differenceOur data suggests that there is potential to assess the prognosis of CD163-TAMs in SCCHNFurther standardized studies should be conducted to confirm these results