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. 2015 Jul 27;4(9):e985930.
doi: 10.4161/2162402X.2014.985930. eCollection 2015 Sep.

Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) improve prognosis in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC)

Sylvia Adams  1 , Lori J Goldstein  2 , Joseph A Sparano  3 , Sandra Demaria  1 , Sunil S Badve  4
Affiliations

Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) improve prognosis in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC)

Sylvia Adams et al. Oncoimmunology. .

Abstract

Upon analysis of archived primary tumors of 482 patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) enrolled in two randomized Phase III adjuvant chemotherapy trials, we have found that tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), as assessed and quantified by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining are a robust and independent predictor of disease-free survival (DFS), distant recurrence-free interval (DRFI) and overall survival (OS).1 Our findings provide confirmation of results observed in TNBC in a European adjuvant chemotherapy dataset and therefore elevate TILs as prognostic biomarker for operable TNBC to level I evidence.

Keywords: TNBC; biomarker; breast cancer; tumor infiltrating lymphocytes.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, for quantification on H&E-stained sections. Examples of a TIL low (A) and TIL rich (B) primary triple negative breast cancer (magnification 10 ×).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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