Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are resident macrophages in the lungs; however, whether the number of AMs plays a role in the lung neuroendocrine tumor (NET) prognosis remains unclear. We counted the number of AMs located around the tumor (peritumoral alveolar macrophages [pAMs]) and the number of AMs located apart from the tumor (distant macrophages; dAMs). In 73 cases of neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC: small cell lung carcinoma and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma), the group that contained higher pAMs (≥86/μm²) revealed shorter recurrent-free survival (RFS) than those with lower pAMs (<86/μm²) (p = 0.005). Bivariate analysis showed that the number of pAMs was an independent predictor of a poor RFS. In contrast, in the carcinoid tumor cohort (n = 29), there was no statistically significant correlation between the two groups with high and low numbers of pAMs in RFS (p = 0.113). Furthermore, we examined the correlation between genomic alterations and the number of pAMs in NEC, but no significant correlation was observed. In conclusion, the number of pAMs is a prognostic factor for NEC in the lung and pAMs may contribute to tumor progression within the peritumoral microenvironment.

中文翻译：

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大量瘤周肺泡巨噬细胞对肺部神经内分泌癌的预后影响

肺泡巨噬细胞 (AM) 是肺部常驻巨噬细胞；然而，AM 的数量是否在肺神经内分泌肿瘤 (NET) 预后中发挥作用仍不清楚。我们计算了位于肿瘤周围的 AM（肿瘤周围肺泡巨噬细胞 [pAM]）的数量和位于肿瘤之外的 AM（远处巨噬细胞；dAM）的数量。在73例神经内分泌癌（NEC：小细胞肺癌和大细胞神经内分泌癌）中，pAM较高（≥86/μm ²）的组比pAM较低（<86）的组显示出更短的无复发生存期（RFS） /μm ² ) ( p  = 0.005)。双变量分析表明，pAM 的数量是 RFS 较差的独立预测因子。相比之下，在类癌队列中 ( n  = 29)，RFS 中 pAM 数量高和低的两组之间不存在统计学显着相关性 ( p  = 0.113)。此外，我们检查了 NEC 中基因组改变与 pAM 数量之间的相关性，但没有观察到显着相关性。总之，pAM 的数量是肺部 NEC 的预后因素，并且 pAM 可能有助于瘤周微环境内的肿瘤进展。