Inflammatory cells in node-negative breast cancer

Figures & data

Table I. Patients’ characteristics.

	Case n	%	Control n	%
Tumour histology
Ductal	163	86	145	76
Lobular	20	10	23	12
Others	7	4	22	12
Histological grade
I	19	10	48	25
II	94	50	105	55
III	76	40	34	18
Not known	1	0	3	2
Estrogen receptor
Positive	103	54	147	77
Negative	79	42	41	22
Not known	8	4	2	1
Progesterone receptor
Positive	73	38	127	66
Negative	108	57	60	32
Not known	9	5	3	1
HER2
Overexpression (IHC 3 + or FISH pos)	18	10	13	7
Normal	158	83	161	85
Not known	14	7	16	8
Adjuvant radiotherapy
Yes	101	53	116	61
No	89	47	74	39
Adjuvant endocrine therapy
Yes	53	28	47	25
No	137	72	143	75

Table II. Descriptive statistics. Mean, median, minimal and maximal values of the different cells types presented.

	Case (n)	Control (n)
CD3	188	188
mean	49	60.5
SD	57.9	78.9
median	30.8	31.0
min	0	0
max	392	484.5
CD20	187	187
mean	12.1	16.8
SD	38.9	47.8
median	0.5	1.5
min	0	0
max	357.5	355.5
CD4	185	184
mean	19.3	25.2
SD	32.5	45.9
median	7	8
min	0	0
max	226	287.5
CD8	186	183
mean	38.2	48.7
SD	48.8	71.5
median	21	24
min	0	0
max	293.0	525
FoxP3	185	183
mean	14	13.5
SD	16.3	17.5
median	9	6
min	0	0
max	95.5	83
Tryptase	188	186
mean	7.8	9.9
SD	6.3	7.6
median	6.5	8
min	0	0
max	47	54.8
CD68	183	183
mean	27	26.8
SD	16	17.3
median	25	22.5
min	3	3
max	78	87.5

Figure 1. Immunohistochemical stainings. Membraneous stainings of CD3, CD4, CD8 and FoxP3 (nuclear staining) all markers of different subgroups of T-cells. Membraneous staining of CD20 (B-cells). Cytoplasmic stainings of CD68 (macrophages) and tryptase (mast cells).

Table III. Spearman correlation. Each parameter was correlated to each other.

Mean value	r	p-value
CD3
CD20	0.70	< 0.0001
CD4	0.70	< 0.0001
CD8	0.80	< 0.0001
Foxp3	0.69	< 0.0001
tryptase	0.18	0.0005
CD68	0.43	< 0.0001
Tumour size	–0.017	0.74
Age at diagnosis	–0.15	0.0046
ER	–0.20	< 0.0001
PgR	–0.12	0.02
Ki67mean	0.21	< 0.0001
Ki67max	0.22	< 0.0001
Elston grade	0.23	< 0.0001
Cyklin A max	0.27	< 0.0001
Cyklin A mean	0.24	< 0.0001
CD20
CD4	0.59	< 0.0001
CD8	0.65	< 0.0001
Foxp3	0.51	< 0.0001
tryptase	0.22	< 0.0001
CD68	0.19	0.0002
Tumour size	–0.087	0.094
Age at diagnosis	–0.24	< 0.0001
ER	–0.13	0.011
PgR	–0.036	0.50
Ki67mean	0.11	0.031
Ki67max	0.11	0.029
Elston	0.15	0.0029
Cyclin A max	0.19	0.0003
Cyclin A mean	0.17	0.0008
CD4
CD8	0.74	< 0.0001
Foxp3	0.63	< 0.0001
tryptase	0.12	0.021
CD68	0.32	< 0.0001
Tumour size	–0.055	0.29
Age at diagnosis	–0.056	0.25
ER	–0.15	0.0032
PgR	–0.13	0.016
Ki67mean	0.28	< 0.0001
Ki67max	0.29	< 0.0001
Elston	0.10	0.051
Cyclin A max	0.25	< 0.0001
Cyclin A mean	0.21	< 0.0001
CD8
Foxp3	0.70	< 0.0001
tryptase	0.18	0.0004
CD68	0.35	< 0.0001
Tumour size	−0.056	0.28
Age at diagnosis	−0.14	0.006
ER	−0.16	0.0028
PgR	−0.058	0.27
Ki67mean	0.16	0.002
Ki67max	0.17	0.0011
Elston	0.17	0.0013
Cyclin A max	0.24	< 0.0001
Cyclin A mean	0.20	0.0002
FoxP3
tryptase	0.10	0.052
CD68	0.44	< 0.0001
Tumour size	0.044	0.40
Age at diagnosis	−0.086	0.097
ER	−0.23	< 0.0001
PgR	−0.23	< 0.0001
Ki67mean	0.39	< 0.0001
Ki67max	0.39	< 0.0001
Elston	0.42	< 0.0001
Cyclin A max	0.40	< 0.0001
Cyclin A mean	0.42	< 0.0001
tryptase
CD68	−0.010	0.85
Tumour size	−0.20	0.0001
Age at diagnosis	−0.15	0.0035
ER	0.088	0.10
PgR	0.17	0.0011
Ki67mean	−0.19	0.0002
Ki67max	−0.19	0.0005
Elston	−0.19	0.0002
Cyclin A max	−0.14	0.008
Cyclin A mean	−0.21	0.0001
CD68
Tumour size	0.18	0.0006
Age at diagnosis	0.084	0.11
ER	−0.13	0.019
PgR	−0.07	0.19
Ki67mean	0.33	0.0001
Ki67max	0.31	0.0001
Elston	0.22	0.0001
Cyclin A max	0.26	0.0001
Cyclin A mean	0.28	0.0001

Table IV. Conditional logistic regression. Case-control study. End point: breast cancer death. Models adjusted for tumour size and age at diagnosis. Different cut-off values were tested in explorative analyses and cut-off at 50 percentile is presented.

	All (190 cases/190 controls)				All (190 cases/190 controls)
		95% CI				95% CI
Cut-off = 50th percentile	OR	lower	upper	Chi-square value	OR	lower	upper	Chi-square value
CD3
≤ 31	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 31	1.0	0.6	1.4	p = 0.83	1.1	0.7	1.7	p = 0.68
CD20
≤ 1.5	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 1.5	0.7	0.5	1.0	p = 0.05	0.8	0.5	1.2	p = 0.29
CD4
≤ 8	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 8	0.8	0.5	1.3	p = 0.78	1.0	0.6	1.5	p = 0.85
CD8
≤ 24	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 24	0.8	0.5	1.3	p = 0.39	1.0	0.6	1.6	p = 0.96
FoxP3
≤ 6	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 6	1.4	0.9	2.1	p = 0.12	1.5	0.9	2.3	p = 0.088
tryptase
≤ 8	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 8	0.6	0.4	0.9	p = 0.018	0.7	0.4	1.1	p = 0.17
CD68
≤ 22.5	1.0 (ref)				1.0 (ref)
> 22.5	1.2	0.8	1.8	p = 0.46	1.0	0.6	1.6	p = 0.99

CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio.