Women with triple-negative breast cancer and high levels of immune cells in their tumors have a lower risk of recurrence after surgery. This is what was shown by a study conducted by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, among others.
Triple negative breast cancer accounts for about 15 percent of all breast cancer diagnoses.
In a large international study, research groups from three continents investigated how immune cell activity in tumors affects the form of cancer, which affects about a thousand women in Sweden every year.
Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy are responsible for the Swedish part of the study, the University of Gothenburg wrote in a press release.
This form of cancer means the loss of three so-called receptors, which means there are fewer treatment options. Triple-negative breast cancer is also more rapidly growing and more likely to spread. There is also a greater risk of the cancer coming back after treatment.
The difference is in survival
The study includes data from about 2,000 women with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer. Thus, the tumors were small and did not spread. Patients were treated with various combinations of surgery and radiation, but not with chemotherapy or cytostatics.
The results showed that the level of immune cells – lymphocytes that can recognize and attack cancer cells – was a strong prognostic biomarker, even when chemotherapy was not included in the treatment. The researchers describe the results as important.
Five years after surgery, 95% of study participants, whose tumor tissue samples showed high levels of these immune cells early in the course of the disease, were alive. In the group that had a low level of immune cells, the survival rate was 82%.
Most of them are treated with chemotherapy
Currently, the level of immune cells in tissue samples is not routinely measured in cases of triple-negative breast cancer or other breast cancers. Cytostatic inhibition is usually part of treatment.
– According to current care programs, the absolute majority of patients with triple-negative breast cancer receive cytostatics, in combination with surgery and radiation, even for small tumors, but our results show a very good prognosis for this group even without cytostatics, in those with high levels of Immune cells are naturally elevated in tumors, says Barbro Linderholm, a researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, in the press release.
The researchers now want to conduct further studies and clinical trials to see whether patients with a positive prognosis – high levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in tissue samples – can avoid intensive chemotherapy.
Scientific study:
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in triple-negative breast cancerjam.
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