Effects of postoperative immunocytes therapy for memory T cell subsets in patients with advanced gastric cancer

Objective To explore the effects of immunotherapy on immunological memory in patients with advanced gastric cancer． Methods Two hundred and fifty-three patients with advanced gastric cancer who underwent radical surgery in our hospital from October 2013 to February 2015 were enrolled in this study, and they were randomly divided into immunotherapy group (n=72) and control group (n=181) according to whether they had undergone immunotherapy, including dendritic cells (DC) and cytotoxic T cell (CTL)． Percentage of CD4⁺T_CM(CD4⁺CD45RO⁺CD62L⁺), CD8⁺T_CM(CD8⁺CD45RO⁺CD62L⁺), CD4⁺T_EM(CD4⁺CD45RO⁺CD62L^-) and CD8⁺T_EM(CD8⁺CD45RO⁺CD62L^-) in peripheral blood was evaluated to analyze immune memory characteristics of advanced gastric cancer patients, furthermore, influence of immunotherapy to immune memory was also analyzed． Results T_CMaccounted for most of the CD4⁺T cells (54．52%±12．76%) while T_EMin CD8⁺T cells accounted for (24．49%±11．39%)． Compared with control group, percentage of CD4⁺T_CMand CD8⁺T_CMin patients treated with immunotherapy decreased significantly (CD4⁺T_CM: immunotherapy, 47．86%±11．77%, control, 60．00%±11．05%, P=0．006; CD8⁺T_CM: immunotherapy, 24．26±7．71%, control, 31．59±9．29%, P=0．025), however, CD8⁺T_EMincreased significantly (control, 20．00±8．43%, immunotherapy, 29．93±12．40%, P=0．013)． Conclusion Memory T cells can effectively evaluate the immune status of advanced gastric cancer, and immunotherapy can be effective in restoring immune depletion status of patients with advanced gastric cancer．