Abstract
BackgroundRecent investigations have demonstrated that the tumor microenvironment, including tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), is an important factor in tumor growth and development. While the prognostic correlation of tumor-infiltrating T cells has been widely studied in breast cancer, that of tumor-infiltrating B cells and plasma cells has not received so much attention, especially in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).MethodsWe investigated 114 patients with TNBC who had surgery between 2006 and 2019 at Dokkyo Medical University Hospital. Intratumoral (i) TILs were considered to be lymphocytes within cancer cell nests and directly infiltrating tumor cells. Similarly, stromal (s) TILs were considered to be lymphocytes within the tumor stroma, but not directly infiltrating tumor cells. CD20 + , CD38 + and CD138 + staining was determined by estimating the number of positive B cells.ResultssCD20 + TILs had prognostic significance for relapse-free survival (RFS) (p = 0.043) and overall survival (OS) (p = 0.027). The sCD38 + TILs were significantly related to favorable RFS (p = 0.042). iCD38, iCD138, and sCD138 was not significantly correlated with RFS (p = 0.065, p = 0.719, p = 0.074) or OS (p = 0.071, p = 0.689, p = 0.082).ConclusionsThe present study demonstrated that a high density of sCD20 + TILs was significantly related to favorable prognosis in both RFS and OS. Increased sCD38 + TILs in TNBC were correlated with a significantly favorable prognosis in RFS. These results indicate that TILs–B may have a profound influence on the clinical outcome of TNBC.
Highlights
Recent investigations have demonstrated that the tumor microenvironment, including tumor- infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), is an important factor in tumor growth and development
A predominance of sCD20 + tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) showed a significant difference for iTILs (p = 0.009), while sCD138 + TILs were associated with mib-1 (p = 0.032) expression
We found that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients with a significant increase in sCD20 + TILs had a favorable prognosis in terms of both relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS)
Summary
Recent investigations have demonstrated that the tumor microenvironment, including tumor- infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), is an important factor in tumor growth and development. While the prognostic correlation of tumorinfiltrating T cells has been widely studied in breast cancer, that of tumor-infiltrating B cells (TILs – B) and plasma cells has not received so much attention, especially in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). TLS present in human solid tumors are important to construct a favorable immune microenvironment to control tumor progression [17, 18] Their functions include B-cell activation, differentiation into plasma cells and antibody production [19] associated with anti-tumor responses [17, 19]. Increased sCD38 + TILs in TNBC were correlated with a significantly favorable prognosis in RFS These results indicate that TILs–B may have a profound influence on the clinical outcome of TNBC
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