MAGE-A is More Highly Expressed Than NY-ESO-1 in a Systematic Immunohistochemical Analysis of 3668 Cases

Two cancer testis antigens, the New York esophageal squamous cell carcinoma-1 (NY-ESO-1) and the melanoma-antigen family A (MAGE-A), represent promising immunotherapy targets due to the low expression of these antigens in nonmalignant tissue. To assess overexpression patterns in various cancers, we performed a systematic immunohistochemical analysis for NY-ESO-1 and MAGE-A on tissue array samples of 3668 common epithelial carcinomas (CA) and germ cell tumors of high prevalence and mortality. Here, we find significantly higher expression of MAGE-A (>50% on tumor cells) compared with NY-ESO-1 in several CAs including cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) (52.8%/2.8%), esophageal SCC (50%/0%), head and neck SCC (41.1%/