Criscitiello Carmen, Bagnardi Vincenzo, Pruneri Giancarlo, Vingiani Andrea, Esposito Angela, Rotmensz Nicole, Curigliano Giuseppe
Division of Early Drug Development, European Institute of Oncology, Milano, Italy.
Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, European Institute of Oncology, Milano, Italy; Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
Eur J Cancer. 2017 Dec;87:164-171. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2017.10.011. Epub 2017 Nov 15.
The standard treatment for patients with small, node-negative, human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer (BC) is still controversial. Our aim was to assess the prognostic role of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in patients with stage pT1a-b HER2-positive BC.
Haematoxylin and eosin slides from node-negative, pT1a-b HER2-positive BC surgical specimens were retrieved from pathology archives to assess TILs and their association with outcome.
TILs were evaluated in 205 patients with HER2-positive, pT1a-b tumours, who underwent breast surgery between 1997 and 2009 at the European Institute of Oncology. At a median follow-up of 11 years, we did not observe any association between the presence of TILs, either assessed as a continuous or dichotomous variable (<50 versus ≥ 50%), and outcome. Within the subgroup of patients with pT1a tumours who did not receive any adjuvant therapy (36/97 patients), the rate of disease-free survival events was lower in lymphocyte-predominant BC (LPBC) as compared with non-LPBC patients (p = 0.066).
TILs cannot be used as a prognostic biomarker in pT1a-b HER2-positive BC. Additional biomarkers are needed for selecting patients with stage I HER2-positive BC who candidate to adjuvant therapy de-escalation.
对于小的、无淋巴结转移的、人表皮生长因子受体2（HER2）阳性乳腺癌（BC）患者的标准治疗仍存在争议。我们的目的是评估肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞（TILs）在pT1a - b期HER2阳性BC患者中的预后作用。
从病理档案中检索出无淋巴结转移、pT1a - b期HER2阳性BC手术标本的苏木精和伊红染色切片，以评估TILs及其与预后的关系。
对205例HER2阳性、pT1a - b期肿瘤患者的TILs进行了评估，这些患者于1997年至2009年在欧洲肿瘤研究所接受了乳腺手术。中位随访11年，我们未观察到TILs的存在（无论是作为连续变量还是二分变量评估<50% 与≥50%）与预后之间存在任何关联。在未接受任何辅助治疗的pT1a期患者亚组（36/97例患者）中，淋巴细胞为主型BC（LPBC）患者的无病生存事件发生率低于非LPBC患者（p = 0.066）。
TILs不能用作pT1a - b期HER2阳性BC的预后生物标志物。需要额外的生物标志物来选择适合辅助治疗降阶梯的I期HER2阳性BC患者。
