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The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer statement on best practices for multiplex immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) staining and validation.
J Immunother Cancer
  • Janis M Taube
  • Guray Akturk
  • Michael Angelo
  • Elizabeth L Engle
  • Sacha Gnjatic
  • Shirley Greenbaum
  • Noah F Greenwald
  • Cyrus V Hedvat
  • Travis J Hollmann
  • Jonathan Juco
  • Edwin R Parra
  • Marlon C Rebelatto
  • David L Rimm
  • Jaime Rodriguez-Canales
  • Kurt A Schalper
  • Edward C Stack
  • Cláudia S Ferreira
  • Konstanty Korski
  • Ana Lako
  • Scott J Rodig
  • Emanuel Schenck
  • Keith E Steele
  • Michael J Surace
  • Michael T Tetzlaff
  • Katharina von Loga
  • Ignacio I Wistuba
  • Carlo Bifulco, Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Robert W. Franz Cancer Research Center, Providence Portland Medical Center, Portland, OR
  • Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Pathology Task Force.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2020
Keywords
  • genomics
Disciplines
Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The interaction between the immune system and tumor cells is an important feature for the prognosis and treatment of cancer. Multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) and multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) analyses are emerging technologies that can be used to help quantify immune cell subsets, their functional state, and their spatial arrangement within the tumor microenvironment.

METHODS: The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a task force of pathologists and laboratory leaders from academic centers as well as experts from pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to develop best practice guidelines for the optimization and validation of mIHC/mIF assays across platforms.

RESULTS: Representative outputs and the advantages and disadvantages of mIHC/mIF approaches, such as multiplexed chromogenic IHC, multiplexed immunohistochemical consecutive staining on single slide, mIF (including multispectral approaches), tissue-based mass spectrometry, and digital spatial profiling are discussed.

CONCLUSIONS: mIHC/mIF technologies are becoming standard tools for biomarker studies and are likely to enter routine clinical practice in the near future. Careful assay optimization and validation will help ensure outputs are robust and comparable across laboratories as well as potentially across mIHC/mIF platforms. Quantitative image analysis of mIHC/mIF output and data management considerations will be addressed in a complementary manuscript from this task force.

Clinical Institute
Cancer
Specialty
Oncology
Specialty
Earle A. Chiles Research Institute
Citation Information
Janis M Taube, Guray Akturk, Michael Angelo, Elizabeth L Engle, et al.. "The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer statement on best practices for multiplex immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) staining and validation." J Immunother Cancer (2020)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/carlo-bifulco/4/