New insights into the tumour immune microenvironment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is unique among head and neck cancers for its strong causative association with Epstein Barr-Virus and high levels of immune infiltration that play a role in pathogenesis. As such, immunotherapy for the treatment of NPC is a promising area of research in the pursuit of improving patient outcomes. Understanding the tumour immune microenvironment (TIME) of NPC is the key to developing targeted immunotherapies and stratifying patients to determine optimal treatment regimens. Recent research has uncovered distinct characteristics of the TIME in NPC as well as important differences between the different disease subtypes; however, reviewing the state of the field reveals a further need for the application of novel techniques like multiplexed hyperspectral imaging and mass cytometry. These techniques can be used to identify spatial, compositional, and functional aspects of the TIME in NPC such as immune cell sociology, novel immune populations, and differences in immune-related signalling pathways in NPC in order to identify clinically relevant characteristics for targeted immunotherapy development and biomarker discovery