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Open Access 01-12-2024 | Breast Cancer | Research

Exploration of the relationship between tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte score and histological grade in breast cancer

Authors: Deyong Kang, Chuan Wang, Zhonghua Han, Liqin Zheng, Wenhui Guo, Fangmeng Fu, Lida Qiu, Xiahui Han, Jiajia He, Lianhuang Li, Jianxin Chen

Published in: BMC Cancer | Issue 1/2024

Abstract

Background

The histological grade is an important factor in the prognosis of invasive breast cancer and is vital to accurately identify the histological grade and reclassify of Grade2 status in breast cancer patients.

Methods

In this study, data were collected from 556 invasive breast cancer patients, and then randomly divided into training cohort (n = 335) and validation cohort (n = 221). All patients were divided into actual low risk group (Grade1) and high risk group (Grade2/3) based on traditional histological grade, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte score (TILs-score) obtained from multiphoton images, and the TILs assessment method proposed by International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group (TILs-WG) were also used to differentiate between high risk group and low risk group of histological grade in patients with invasive breast cancer. Furthermore, TILs-score was used to reclassify Grade2 (G2) into G2 /Low risk and G2/High risk. The coefficients for each TILs in the training cohort were retrieved using ridge regression and TILs-score was created based on the coefficients of the three kinds of TILs.

Results

Statistical analysis shows that TILs-score is significantly correlated with histological grade, and is an independent predictor of histological grade (odds ratio [OR], 2.548; 95%CI, 1.648–3.941; P < 0.0001), but TILs-WG is not an independent predictive factor for grade (P > 0.05 in the univariate analysis). Moreover, the risk of G2/High risk group is higher than that of G2/Low risk group, and the survival rate of patients with G2/Low risk is similar to that of Grade1, while the survival rate of patients with G2/High risk is even worse than that of patients with G3.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that TILs-score can be used to predict the histological grade of breast cancer and potentially to guide the therapeutic management of breast cancer patients.

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Title: Exploration of the relationship between tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte score and histological grade in breast cancer
Authors: Deyong Kang
Chuan Wang
Zhonghua Han
Liqin Zheng
Wenhui Guo
Fangmeng Fu
Lida Qiu
Xiahui Han
Jiajia He
Lianhuang Li
Jianxin Chen
Publication date: 01-12-2024
Publisher: BioMed Central
Keywords: Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer
Published in: BMC Cancer / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2407
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-024-12069-0

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Abstract

Background

Methods

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