The effect of circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T cells on the prognosis in advanced postoperative pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients who received chemotherapy

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of circulating immune cells before and after chemotherapy on the prognosis of patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAC). Data were collected from 74 advanced PAC patients with post-chemotherapy, retrieved from the Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University database in Jiangsu. Based on the cutoff values of circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T cells before and after chemotherapy, the aforementioned patients were divided into high- and low-level groups. The impact of the expression levels of blood immune cells before and after chemotherapy on patient prognosis was analyzed separately. For both pre- and post-treatment circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, patients in the high expression group had significantly better progression-free survival and overall survival than those in the low expression group (P < .001). The results of this study show that high circulating immune cells are positively associated with better prognosis in patients with advanced PAC receiving chemotherapy and may become a new prognostic indicator for PAC treatment.