High activation of CAFs was positively correlated with elevated infiltration of polarized CD163-positive TAMs and lymph node metastasis in TNBC patients.
To begin with, immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of CD163, one typical surface marker of M2 macrophages in 90 paired ESCC and its normal controls after meta-analyzing the relevant studies regarding M2 macrophages in ESCC, confirming that infiltration of M2 macrophages was significantly linked with lymph node metastasis, T classification, and inferior overall survival of ESCC.
Increased densities of CD68-, CD163-, and CD204-positive TAMs were significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = .035, .0082, and .038, respectively).
Notably, a high index of CD163+ macrophages was significantly associated with higher FIGO stages (<i>p</i> = 0.009) and lymph node metastasis (<i>p</i> = 0.012), but a similar finding was not found for CD68+ macrophages (<i>p</i> = 0.067, <i>p</i> = 0.079, respectively).
The increased number of CD163-positive TAMs in tumor nest and tumor stromal was positively associated with Kazakh ESCC lymph node metastasis and clinical stage progression.