Fig 1.
Histopathologic analysis of the percentage of TILs was performed on a single full-face hematoxylin and eosin-stained tumor section.
TILs were defined as the percentage of tumor stroma containing infiltrating lymphocytes. Proportional scores were defined as 3, 2, 1, and 0 if the area of stroma with lymphoplasmacytic infiltration around invasive tumor cell nests was > 50% (A); > 10ā50% (B); ā¤ 10% (C); and absent (D), respectively.
Table 1.
Correlations between tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and clinicopathological parameters in 52 locally advanced or metastatic breast cancers and their Triple negative- and non-Triple negative-subtypes.
Fig 2.
In an analysis of outcomes, TNBC patients in the high TILs group had significantly longer disease-free survival than TNBC patients in the low TILs group (p = 0.033, log-rank) (A), but no significant differences were seen in all breast cancer patients (p = 0.489, log-rank) (B) or in non-TNBC patients (p = 0.878, log-rank) (C).
Fig 3.
Among TNBC patients OS was significantly longer in the high TILs group than in the low TILs group (p = 0.042, log-rank) (A). However, no increase in OS was seen among all breast cancer patients (p = 0.668, log-rank) (B) or among non-TNBC patients (p = 0.535, log-rank) (C). With regard to TTF, no significant differences were seen in any subtype (DāF).
Table 2.
Univariate and multivariate analysis with respect to progression free survival in 22 triple-negative breast cancers.