Peripheral blood-derived immune cell counts as prognostic indicators and their relationship with DNA methylation subclasses in glioblastoma patients

Glioblastomas are known for their immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, which may explain the failure of most clinical trials in the past decade. Recent studies have emphasized the significance of stratifying glioblastoma patients to predict better therapeutic responses and survival outcomes. This study aims to investigate the prognostic relevance of peripheral immune cell counts sampled prior to surgery, with a special focus on methylation-based subclassification. Peripheral blood was sampled in patients with newly diagnosed (n = 176) and recurrent (n = 41) glioblastoma at the time of surgery and analyzed for neutrophils, monocytes, leukocytes, platelets, neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio, lymphocyte–monocyte ratio, and platelet–lymphocyte ratio. Peripheral immune cell counts were correlated with patients' survival after combined radiochemotherapy. In addition, 850 k genome-wide DNA methylation was assessed on tissue for defining tumor subclasses and performing cell-type deconvolution. In newly diagnosed glioblastoma, patients with higher peripheral neutrophil counts had an unfavorable overall survival (OS) (p = 0.01, median overall-survival (mOS) 17.0 vs. 10.0 months). At the time of first recurrence, a significant decrease of peripheral immune cell counts was observed, and elevated monocyte (p = 0.03), neutrophil (p = 0.04), and platelet (p = 0.01) counts were associated with poorer survival outcomes. DNA methylation subclass-stratified analysis revealed a significant survival influence of neutrophils (p = 0.007) and lymphocytes (p = 0.04) in the mesenchymal (MES) subclass. Integrating deconvolution of matched tumor tissue showed that platelets and monocytes were correlated with a more differentiated, tumor-progressive cell state, and peripheral immune cell counts were most accurately reflected in tissue of the MES subclass. This study illustrates a restricted prognostic significance of peripheral immune cell counts in newly diagnosed glioblastoma and a constrained representation in matched tumor tissue, but it demonstrates a more pertinent situation at the time of recurrence and after DNA methylation-based stratification.