Lymphoid and myeloid cells are abundant in the tumor microenvironment, can be quantified by immunohistochemistry and shape the disease course of human solid tumors. Yet, there is no comprehensive understanding of spatial immune infiltration patterns ('topography') across cancer entities and across various immune cell types. In this study, we systematically measure the topography of multiple immune cell types in 965 histological tissue slides from N=177 patients in a pan-cancer cohort. We provide a definition of inflamed ('hot'), non-inflamed ('cold') and immune excluded patterns and investigate how these patterns differ between immune cell types and between cancer types. In an independent cohort of N=287 colorectal cancer patients, we show that hot, cold and excluded topographies for effector lymphocytes (CD8) and tumor-associated macrophages (CD163) alone are not prognostic, but that a bivariate classification system can stratify patients. Our study adds evidence to consider immune topographies as biomarkers for patients with solid tumors.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 33. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 November 2025.
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#1,432,824
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#3,702
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#23,474
of 358,948 outputs
Outputs of similar age from eLife
#89
of 342 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 31,211,351 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 18,292 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 31.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 342 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
