Histopathological and Immune Prognostic Factors in Colo-Rectal Liver Metastases

Abstract

Prognostic studies are increasingly providing new tools to stratify colo-rectal liver metastasis patients into clinical subgroups, with remarkable implications in terms of clinical management and therapeutic choice. Here, the strengths and hurdles of current prognostic tools in colo-rectal liver metastasis are discussed. Alongside more classic histopathological parameters, which capture features related to the tumor component, such as tumor invasion, tumor growth pattern and regression score, we will discuss immune mediators, which are starting to be considered important features. Their objective quantification has shown significant results in prognostication studies, with most of the work focused on adaptive immune cells, namely T cells. As for macrophages, they are only starting to be appreciated and we will present recent advances in evaluation of macrophage morphological features. Deeper knowledge acquired by multiparametric analyses is rapidly uncovering the variety of immune players that should be assessed. The future projection is to implement deep-learning histopathological tools and to integrate histopathological and immune metrics in multiparametric scores, with the ultimate objective to achieve a deeper resolution of the tumor features and their relevance for colo-rectal liver metastasis.