Editorial: Advances in Head and Neck Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy

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Digital pathology for the identification of prognostic biomarkers in head and neck cancer

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Deciphering the Role of Regulatory CD4 T Cells in Oral and Oropharyngeal Cancer: A Systematic Review

Background: Recruiting regulatory CD4 T cells (Tregs) into the tumor microenvironment is an important tumor escape mechanism. Diminishing these suppressive cells is therefore one of the targets of cancer immunotherapy. Selective depletion of Tregs has proven successful in enhancing anti-tumor immunity and therapeutic efficacy in multiple tumor types. However, the role of Tregs in oral/oropharyngeal cancers is unclear with conflicting evidence regarding the effect of these suppressive cells on tumor prognosis. In this study, we sought to review the role of Tregs in oral/oropharyngeal cancer with the aim of deciphering the controversy regarding their effect on tumor progression and prognosis.Methods: A systematic review of the literature pertaining to the role of Tregs in oral/oropharyngeal cancer was performed using Scopus, Embase, and PubMed. Forty-five records were deemed eligible and data describing methodology of Treg detection, tumor type, and association with prognosis were extracted.Results: Of the 45 eligible manuscripts accepted for this systematic review, thirty-nine studies reported data from human subjects while the remaining studies focused on animal models. Sixteen studies were carried out using peripheral blood samples, while samples from the tumor site were analyzed in 18 studies and 11 studies assessed both blood and tumor samples. The transcriptional factor, Foxp3, was the most commonly used marker for Treg identification (38/45). The findings of 25 studies suggested that an increase in Tregs in the tumor microenvironment and/or peripheral blood was associated with poorer prognosis. These conclusions were attributed to the suppression of immune responses and the consequent tumor progression. Conversely, nine studies showed an increase in Tregs in peripheral blood and/or tumor microenvironment was related to a favorable prognosis, particularly in the presence of human papilloma virus (HPV), the status of which was only assessed in 11 studies.Conclusions: This review underlines the importance of host immunity in the behavior of oral/oropharyngeal cancer. Furthermore, we report an apparent lack of clarity regarding the true role Tregs play in oral/oropharyngeal cancer progression which could be attributed to inconsistent detection techniques of Tregs. Our results therefore highlight the need for clearer methodologies and more robust phenotyping when defining Tregs

Targeting the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway : A therapeutic strategy in COVID-19 patients

Funding This work was supported by Friends of ANCHOR pilot research award [grant number RS 2019 004, 2020-2021]Peer reviewedPostprin

Deciphering the Role of Regulatory CD4 T Cells in Oral and Oropharyngeal Cancer : A Systematic Review

CO was supported by an Innes Will Scholarship, University of Aberdeen HotStart Summer Scholarship Scheme.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Engaging undergraduate medical and dental students with academic medicine : the Aberdeen INSPIRE summer school

Acknowledgments We are grateful to clinical academics F Clegg, B Elsberger, J Gregory, M Karabayas, A Kiltie, A Lalli, R Soiza and for their time and engagement with participants; A Davidson, A Diack, A Holme, L Lumsden, F Saunders, N Sivamanoharan, D Tosh, L Wight, D Wilkinson, D Wilson, and University of Aberdeen PhD students for technical support and J Forsyth for admin support. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Microscopy and Histology Core Facility and the Iain Fraser Cytometry Centre at the University of Aberdeen for their support and assistance.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

On the Road to Immunotherapy : Prospects for Treating Head and Neck Cancers With Checkpoint Inhibitor Antibodies

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Dental Student Readiness to Treat Special Care Patients upon Graduation

Open Access via the Wiley Agreement We would like to thank all the participants who took part in the study.Peer reviewe

CTLA-4 expression by human tumor cells and its impact on immunotherapeutic strategies : a systematic review

Contributions: Farah Abdulkhaleq, Niss Larossi and Okanda Ogbonda performed the search, screening and data extraction. Farah Abdulkhaleq, Rasha Abu-Eid and Frank James Ward wrote and edited the manuscript. Rasha Abu-Eid and Frank James Ward designed the study and checked the accuracy of data extraction. Acknowledgements: Farah Abdulkhaleq is supported by an Elphinstone Scholarship from the University of Aberdeen. Disclosure and potential conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Funding declaration: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.Peer reviewedPublisher PD