To date, the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) tumor, nodes, metastasis (TNM) classification represents the standard system for evaluation of prognosis in solid tumors. However, the clinical outcome can be significantly different in patients with the same TNM stage. Therefore, many efforts have been made aiming to define new prognostic parameters. Indeed, analyses conducted in large cohorts of colorectal cancer patients emphasized the prognostic value of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, leading to the development of a prognostic score referred to as "Immunoscore". In this commentary, we recapitulate the study by Gabrielson and colleagues, recently published in Cancer Immunology Research, addressing the role of intratumoral CD3+ and CD8+ T cells as well as as prognostic markers for hepatocellular carcinoma. The authors demonstrate that Immunoscore represents a valuable prognostic marker in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have undergone primary tumor resection, supporting its application in a tumor setting other than colorectal cancer.
Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Immunoscore; Programmed Death Ligand 1 (PD-L1); TNM Stage; Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes.