Why pathologists and oncologists should know about tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in triple-negative breast cancer: an Australian experience of 139 cases

Abstract

The presence of increased tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is established as a positive prognostic factor in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The majority of studies have examined the role of TILs in predicting response to chemotherapy, but their role as a general prognostic marker in TNBC is unclear. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in the literature regarding a suitable cut-off point by which to stratify patients into prognostic groups. Therefore, we sought to confirm the prognostic value of TILs in an independent cohort of unselected TNBCs, and to determine an appropriate cut-off point by which to stratify TIL scores into prognostically significant categories. We used the International TILs Working Group (ITWG) methodology to assess the density of stromal TILs in our cohort of 139 TNBC patients undergoing curative resection at our institution. The percentage TILs scores were categorised first into three groups: low (0-10%), intermediate (15-50%), and high (55-100%). A second binary variable was also created by separating cases into low TILs (≤50%) and high TILs (>50%) groups. Using the three-tiered system, mean disease-free survival was 156, 99 and 94 months for the high, intermediate and low TILs groups, respectively (p=0.030). However, no statistically significant improvement was observed for overall survival. Using the two-tiered system, statistically significant improvements in both overall survival (p=0.030) and disease-free survival (p=0.010) were observed. This survival benefit remained statistically significant in multivariate analyses (p=0.010, p=0.014). We conclude that TILs scored using the ITWG system and dichotomised at a cut-off score of 50%, are a powerful predictor of all-cause and disease-free survival in TNBC regardless of chemotherapy treatment.