Adjacent nontumor mucosa: The overlooked frontier in colorectal cancer prognostication

Immune contexture increasingly shapes colorectal cancer (CRC) prognosis, yet most profiling is tumor-centric. The study interrogated adjacent nontumor mucosa (NM) and tumor center (TC) in 99 CRC patients with liver metastases (LM). Using immunohistochemistry for CD68 (M0), CD80 (M1), and CD206/CD163 (M2), they observed a consistent density gradient (CD163 > CD206 > CD68 > CD80) and markedly lower macrophage densities in TC vs NM, consistent with immune exclusion. Crucially, stage-specif