Eighty-five breast carcinomas were immunostained for CD3-, CD4-, CD8-, CD16-, CD22-, CD38- and CD57-positive lymphocyte subpopulations. The results were related to follow-up data (median follow-up 46 months) of 74 patients regarding overall survival and 73 patients in respect to disease-free survival. Whereas the number of axillary lymph node metastases (P less than 0.01) and the hormone receptor status (P less than 0.01) resulted in significantly different survival curves for overall survival, not one of the lymphocyte subset infiltrats correlated significantly which overall survival. For disease-free survival, pT stage (P less than 0.01) and nodal (P less than 0.01) and hormone receptor status (P less than 0.05) proved to be prognostically important. However, disease-free survival was not influenced by the infiltration of any lymphocyte subset.