Fluorescent imaging of a tumor section identifies different types of macrophages (green) and T’cells (blue) present in the microenvironment of kidney cancer. (image: Karina Silina, UZH)
Renal cell carcinoma is one of the most frequent and deadly urogenital cancers. Even if the tumors are treated, they ultimately end in metastasis in about half of the patients. 90 percent of these patients die within five years. Thanks to new kinds of immunotherapies, the outlook of this patient group has improved, but the treatment only works for a minority of patients. Composition of immune cells influences the prognosis of patients. To find out more about the body`s own defense against cancer cells - and how it can be strengthened - researchers headed by Bernd Bodenmiller at the Institute of Molecular Life Sciences of the University of Zurich have individually analyzed a total of 3.5 million immune cells in the tumor samples of 73 patients with renal cell carcinoma and in five healthy controls. "The previous picture of immune defense was correct, but coarse," says first author of the study, Stéphane Chevrier.
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