Immunotherapy has emerged as a promising treatment modality for HNSCC. However, only a small proportion of HNSCC patients experience clinical benefits from immunotherapy and identifying molecular markers that can serve as effective prognostic signatures and predictive indicators for immunotherapy response in patients with HNSCC is critical. CLEC10A has attracted attention because of its important role in improving the antitumor activity of immune cells. However, to our knowledge, no study has evaluated the role of CLEC10A in HNSCC prognosis, progression, and immune microenvironment. In the present study, we comprehensively analyzed expression profiles of CLEC10A and its association with tumor progression, HPV status, and survival of patients. Moreover, we explored the association between CLEC10A expression relative to immune infiltration and the response to immunotherapy. We explored the association between the timing of the receipt of palliative care relative to cancer diagnosis and survival. Our results revealed that CLEC10A has decreased expression in HNSCC compared with normal tissues, and that low expression of CLEC10A was associated with an advanced clinical stage and poor prognosis. Furthermore, a higher level of CLEC10A expression correlated with immune infiltration presence and response to immunotherapy in HNSCC. Thus, we demonstrated that CLEC10A could be a potential prognostic marker in patients with HNSCC, and a potential target for immunotherapy.

免疫疗法已成为 HNSCC 的一种有前途的治疗方式。然而，只有一小部分 HNSCC 患者从免疫治疗中获得临床益处，识别可作为 HNSCC 患者免疫治疗反应的有效预后特征和预测指标的分子标志物至关重要。CLEC10A因其在提高免疫细胞抗肿瘤活性方面的重要作用而备受关注。然而，据我们所知，没有研究评估 CLEC10A 在 HNSCC 预后、进展和免疫微环境中的作用。在本研究中，我们全面分析了 CLEC10A 的表达谱及其与肿瘤进展、HPV 状态和患者生存的关系。此外，我们探讨了CLEC10A之间的关联表达相对于免疫浸润和对免疫治疗的反应。我们探讨了接受姑息治疗的时间与癌症诊断和生存率之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，与正常组织相比， CLEC10A在 HNSCC 中的表达降低，并且CLEC10A的低表达与晚期临床分期和预后不良有关。此外，更高水平的 CLEC10A 表达与 HNSCC 中免疫浸润的存在和对免疫治疗的反应相关。因此，我们证明 CLEC10A 可能是 HNSCC 患者的潜在预后标志物，也是免疫治疗的潜在靶点。