Resistance to
chemotherapy is widely recognized as one of the major factors limiting therapeutic efficacy and influences clinical outcomes in patients with
cancer. Many studies on various
tumor types have focused on combining standard-of-care
chemotherapy with
immunotherapy. However, for
cervical cancer, the role of
neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) on the local immune microenvironment is largely unexplored. We performed a pilot study on 13 primary cervical
tumor samples, before and after NACT, to phenotype and enumerate
tumor-infiltrating T-cell subpopulations using multiplex immunohistochemistry (CD3, CD8, FoxP3, Ki67, and Tbet) and automated co-expression analysis software. A significant decrease in proliferating (Ki67+) CD3+CD8- T cells and FoxP3+(CD3+CD8-) regulatory T cells was observed in the
tumor stroma after
cisplatin and
paclitaxel treatment, with increased rates of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, including activated and CD8+Tbet+ T cells. No effect was observed on the number of
tumor-infiltrating T cells in the cervical tumor microenvironment
after treatment with
cisplatin only. Therefore, we conclude that patients treated with
cisplatin and
paclitaxel had more
tumor-infiltrating T-cell modulation than patients treated with
cisplatin monotherapy. These findings enhance our understanding of the immune-modulating effect of
chemotherapy and warrant future combination of the standard-of-care
therapy with
immunotherapy to improve clinical outcome in patients with
cervical cancer.