Immune cells within tertiary lymphoid structures are associated with progression‐free survival in patients with locoregional recurrent breast cancer

作者：Jinyuan Gu, Jiaming Wang, Yue Sun, Xinrui Mao, Chao Qian, Xinyu Tang, Wang Ji, Hui Xie, Lijun Ling, Yi Zhao, Xiaoan Liu, Kai Zhang, Hong Pan, Shui Wang, Cong Wang, Wenbin Zhou · 发表于：Cancer Medicine · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1002/cam4.6864 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Cancer Immunotherapy and Biomarkers、Immunotherapy and Immune Responses、Immune cells in cancer

INTRODUCTION: Locoregional recurrent breast cancers have a poor prognosis. Little is known about the prognostic impact of immune microenvironment, and tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) in particular have not been reported. Thus, we aimed to characterize the immune microenvironment in locoregional recurrent breast tumors and to investigate its relationship with prognosis. METHODS: We retrospectively included 112 patients with locoregional recurrent breast cancer, and hematoxylin-eosin staining and immunohistochemical staining (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD38, and CD68) were performed on locoregional recurrent tumor samples. The association of immune cells and TLSs with progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed by survival analysis. RESULTS: We found more immune cells in the peritumor than stroma. After grouping according to estrogen receptor (ER) status, a low level of peritumoral CD3+ cells in ER+ subgroup (p = 0.015) and a low level of stromal CD68+ cells in ER- subgroup (p = 0.047) were both associated with longer PFS. TLSs were present in 68% of recurrent tumors, and CD68+ cells within TLSs were significantly associated with PFS as an independent prognostic factor (p = 0.035). TLSs and immune cells (CD3, CD38, and CD68) within TLSs were associated with longer PFS in ER- recurrent tumors (p = 0.044, p = 0.012, p = 0.050, p < 0.001, respectively), whereas CD38+ cells within TLSs were associated with shorter PFS in ER+ recurrent tumors (p = 0.037). CONCLUSION: Our study propo...