Racial and Ethnic Differences in Tumor Microenvironment

Literature has shown that there are differences in the tumor microenvironment (TME) across different racial groups. Black patients with cancer are known to have a poor prognosis compared to their Caucasian counterparts. There are several reasons for the same, such as genetic and genomic differences, poor access to health care, more comorbidities, delays in cancer diagnosis, etc. However, one additional factor responsible for the poor outcomes is TME differences. For example, Black patients with breast cancer have more immune cells in the tumor, but most of the CD8+ T cells are exhausted, which may explain the poor outcomes given an inefficient anti-tumor immune response. In addition, the TME also has more immunosuppressive chemokines which results in TME infiltration with immunosuppressive cells, such as regulatory T cells which may be responsible for tumor progression. Besides several other factors such as poor access to health resources, these TME differences could also contribute to adverse clinical outcomes observed among the Black patients.

Understanding the TME differences across racial and ethnic groups is crucial to advance our understanding of the causes of racial and ethnic disparities in cancer morbidity and mortality. This knowledge would also help develop personalized strategies targeting the TME, to improve the clinical outcomes, such as strategies that could overcome immune exhaustion in the TME or strategies to enrich the TME with chemokines to attract anti-tumor CD8+ T cells into the tumor. Some early research has shown that the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors could preferentially improve outcomes among Black patients. Currently, cancer treatments administered are universal and do not consider these baseline differences in the TME. There is an unmet need to acknowledge that baseline TME differences exist and develop novel approaches to individualize cancer treatment.

We encourage submissions of manuscripts on the following topics:
-Differences in TME across racial and ethnic groups.
-Racial and ethnic differences in patient response to cancer immunotherapy.
-Approaches to better target racial and ethnic TME differences to improve clinical outcomes and to bridge cancer disparities.

Article types: Original research, Original Research, Systematic Review, Methods, Review, Policy and Practice Reviews, Hypothesis & Theory, Clinical Trial, Classification, Technology and Code, Study Protocol, Mini Review, Perspective, Case Report, Conceptual Analysis, Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy, Brief Research Report

Topic editor Dr. Shipra Gandhi is a consultant for Novartis, AstraZeneca, and Hologic. Dr. Shipra Gandhi received financial support from MedPage Today, Aptitude Health, and OncLive. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.