Prognostic Factors and Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Abstract

Objective: Triple-negative-breast-cancer (TNBC) is a very heterogenous disease some of which are very aggressive and have poor prognosis. Notargeted therapy is available. Immune response and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) can be related to longer disease-free survival (DFS) andoverall survival (OS) in TNBC. Family history of cancer can be related poor prognosis, irrespective of genetic mutation.Materials and Methods: Pathology reports and files of 167 patients operated for TNBC were assessed retrospectively. The effects of lymphocyteinfiltration, family history of cancer and other tumor characteristics on prognosis were evaluated. Data of 137 patients was included in statisticalanalysis.Results: Univariate-analysis revealed that stage, size of tumor, histological subtype, number of infiltrated axillary lymph-nodes, lymphatic andvascular invasion, choice of adjuvant/neoadjuvant chemotherapy, family history of cancer has a statistically significant effect on DFS. Increase indensity of lymphocyte infiltration of tumor has also better a prognostic effect on DFS (p=0.02). In multivariate-analysis, only tumor size and choiceof adjuvant/neoadjuvant chemotherapy are found to have statistically significant effect.Conclusion: Tumor lymphocyte infiltration was found to have a statistically significant better prognostic effect on DFS but not on OS of patientswith operated TNBC. This result can be due to variability of therapies administered after recurrence and other confounding factors that may havean effect on OS.