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Tumour-Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs) in Breast Cancer: a Predictive or a Prognostic Marker?

  • Systemic Research (J Cortes, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Breast cancer has not been considered as an immunogenic solid cancer type; however, recent studies demonstrate evidence of significant prognostic information that can be derived from immune cell infiltration via tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in patient tumours. The presence of TILs has been associated with increased response rates to cytotoxic chemotherapy as well as targeted therapies, leading to improved disease-free and overall survival in certain breast cancer subtypes. Accordingly, experts have developed a standardized methodology for evaluating TILs within clinical specimens in histopathological practice. An overview of a newly established practical guideline for TIL evaluation in breast cancer is described in this paper. Furthermore, this review discusses the predictive and prognostic significance of TILs, highlighting recent evidence linking TILs to prognosis in breast cancer. In addition, it summarizes the most current understanding of TIL composition as well as mechanisms of immunity generation and suppression. Overall, the current literature demonstrates that TILs are proving to be a promising target for the treatment of immunogenic breast cancers.

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Sathana Dushyanthen, Roberto Salgado, Peter Savas, Karen Willard-Gallo and Sherene Loi declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Carsten Denkert is co-founder and shareholder of Sividon Diagnostics and co-inventor of patent EP 14153692.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Research, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Sathana Dushyanthen, Peter Savas & Sherene Loi

  2. Institute Jules Bordet, Brussels, Belgium

    Karen Willard-Gallo

  3. Institute of Pathology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

    Carsten Denkert

  4. German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Berlin, Germany

    Carsten Denkert

  5. Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory/Breast International Group, Institute Jules Bordet, Brussels Department of Pathology and TCRU, GZA, Antwerp, Belgium

    Roberto Salgado

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  1. Sathana Dushyanthen
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Correspondence to Sherene Loi.

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Dushyanthen, S., Savas, P., Willard-Gallo, K. et al. Tumour-Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs) in Breast Cancer: a Predictive or a Prognostic Marker?. Curr Breast Cancer Rep 7, 59–70 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-014-0178-4

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