Upon analysis of archived primary tumors of 482 patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) enrolled in two randomized Phase III adjuvant chemotherapy trials, we have found that tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), as assessed and quantified by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining are a robust and independent predictor of disease-free survival (DFS), distant recurrence-free interval (DRFI) and overall survival (OS).1 Our findings provide confirmation of results observed in TNBC in a European adjuvant chemotherapy dataset and therefore elevate TILs as prognostic biomarker for operable TNBC to level I evidence.
Keywords: TNBC; biomarker; breast cancer; tumor infiltrating lymphocytes.