RESUMO
Background and Objectives: the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy [NAC] in breast cancer induces a pCR in only 30-35% of patients. We canft depend only on clinical and pathological factors to distinguish the patients who have no chance of a pCR or not. Moreover, the NAC scenario is the perfect setting to study possible changes in TIL levels. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes [TIL] [CD] 8+ are essential components of tumor-specific cellular adaptive immunity. However, only few studies have addressed the significance of [CD8+] TIL in patients with breast cancer
Patients and Methods: we assessed the stromal and intratumral TIL, CD+8 in pretreatment core biopsy by immuohistochemistry [IHC] in 45 patients with breast cancer received neoadjuvant anthracyclin and docetaxel chemotherapy. CD8 classified into high or low according to the inter quartile range. Tumors with >/= 50% intratumoral or stromal lymphocytes were designated lymphocyte predominant breast cancer [LPBC]
Results: we found statistically significant correlation with high CD8 and DFS and smaller tumor residual [95% CI, 18.6-22.9; P= 0.01] and [p=0.003] respectively. But there was no significant difference regarding pCR or OS between high and low groups
Conclusion: this study confirmed that the CD8 TIL is an important prognostic and predictive factor in breast cancer