Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer: Standards for Reporting of Multiplex Immunohistochemistry/Immunofluorescence Assays (STORMI).
Publication Title
J Immunother Cancer
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-21-2025
Keywords
Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Neoplasms; Immunotherapy; Fluorescent Antibody Technique; Tumor Microenvironment; Biomarkers, Tumor; Biomarker; Immunotherapy; Pathology; Tumor microenvironment - TME; oregon; portland; chiles
Abstract
Multiplex immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry (mIF/IHC) are increasingly employed antibody-based technologies that use tissue sparingly and facilitate the detection of co-localized or neighboring biomarkers. Specifically, these platforms enable spatial analyses of the tumor microenvironment as well as extended applications, for example, describing normal tissue anatomy, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, etc. mIF/IHC has greatly enhanced biomarker discovery efforts, and a growing number of studies suggest superiority to traditional IHC. Standardization of staining approaches, reporting of image analysis strategies and resultant data is critical for facilitating cross-study comparisons, validation, deployment, and generalization of findings. To address this challenge, The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) previously published two articles providing best practice guidelines for mIF/IHC staining, image analysis, and data sharing. Here, SITC convened stakeholders to develop the third article in the series, a consensus checklist for scientific reporting of mIF/IHC data to support and complement the best practice guidelines. The checklist includes critical components of mIF/IHC applications to be defined within publications such as detailed descriptions of analytical validation; image acquisition, selection, and registration methods; and cell clustering and spatial analysis strategies, amongst others. Such information will help with data reproducibility and comparison across studies towards future drug and assay development.
Area of Special Interest
Cancer
Specialty/Research Institute
Oncology
Specialty/Research Institute
Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
DOI
10.1136/jitc-2025-012280
