Patients pathologically confirmed with cervical cancer or benign gynecologic tumor that requires chemoradiotherapy or surgery will be recruited to this study. Tumor samples, normal epithelium of the cervix or other biological samples will be obtained from patients who will receive surgery to establish the baseline status of tumor/mucosal immunogeneicity. For patients undergoing definite radiotherapy, tumor biopsies, collection of blood samples and microbiota will be performed before and during the course of treatment and when the disease progressed. These biological specimens will be used to investigate signaling pathways that determine tumor immungenenicity and their dynamic changes during treatment and to explore feasible biomarkers that could reflect and help monitor the inter- and intra-patient varariation of tumor immunogenicity.
This study aims to investigate mechanisms that dictate tumor immunogenicity and to explore potential biomarkers that could help predict changes of tumor immunogenicity and therapeutic response in patients with cervical cancer after chemoradiotherapy or surgery.