Immune infiltrates in the breast cancer microenvironment: detection, characterization and clinical implication

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• 作者：Samantha Burugu ; Karama Asleh-Aburaya ; Torsten O. Nielsen
• 关键词：Breast cancer ; Immune microenvironment ; Tumor ; infiltrating lymphocytes ; Prognosis ; Prediction
• 刊名：Breast Cancer
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：24
• 期：1
• 页码：3-15
• 全文大小：
• 刊物主题：Surgical Oncology; Oncology; Surgery; Cancer Research;
• 出版者：Springer Japan
• ISSN：1880-4233
• 卷排序：24

文摘

Although unlike melanoma, breast cancer is not generally viewed as a highly immunogenic cancer, recent studies have described a rich tumor immune microenvironment in a subset of breast cancers. These immune infiltrates, comprised cells from the innate and adaptive immune response, can be detected and characterized in biopsy specimens and have prognostic value. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) represent the majority of mononuclear immune infiltrates in the breast tumor microenvironment and can be easily identified in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues after standard hematoxylin and eosin staining. High levels of TILs are most common in HER2+ and basal-like subtypes where they are associated with good prognosis and with response to certain therapies such as the anti-HER2 antibody trastuzumab. International collaborative efforts are underway to standardize the assessment of TILs so as to facilitate their implementation as a breast cancer biomarker. Using immunohistochemistry to further characterize TILs, recent reports describe the presence of important lymphocyte populations including CD8+ cytotoxic, FOXP3+ regulatory, and CD4+ helper and follicular T cells which have overlapping associations with prognosis and response to therapies. Moreover, recently identified immune checkpoint markers (PD-1, PD-L1) are present in some breast cancers, implying some cases might be especially amenable to immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment strategies which are being evaluated in a number of active clinical trials.