Dissimilar patterns of tumor-infiltrating immune cells at the invasive tumor front and tumor center are associated with response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in primary breast cancer

Table 3 Association of TILs and TIL subtypes with clinicopathological characteristics

		p-value
Clinical parameter	TIL subtype	ITF	TC
Tumor grade	TILs	0.047^a	0.047^a
Tumor grade	CD3	0.0407^a
cT stadium (pre-NACT)	TILs		0.004^d
	CD3		0.004^d
	CD4		0.0118^b
ypT stadium (post-NACT)	TILs	0.0069^c	0.0014^c
	CD3	0.0010^c	0.0069^c
	CD4	0.0014^c
	CD8	0.0197^c
	CD20	0.0151^c
	IS CD3/CD8	0.0254^c
	IS CD3/CD20	0.0144^c
clinical response	TILs		0.0204^b
clinical response	CD3		0.0235^b
histological regression grade	TILs		0.0007^c
	CD3	0.0308^c	0.0002^c
	CD4	0.037^c
	CD8	0.0308^c	0.0008^c
	CD20	0.023^c	0.0196^c
	IS CD3/CD8	0.0093^c
	IS CD3/CD20	0.0481^c
DTC presence post-NACT	CD4		0.0296^c

High amounts of total TILs and CD3+ T cells at the ITF were associated with smaller tumor sizes post-NACT. Comparable results were observed for both immune infiltrates in the TC. The tumor grading was directly correlated with the amount of total TILs both at the ITF and in the TC as well as with the level of CD3+ cells at the ITF. Favourable NACT responses, evaluated by pathological response rate and histological regression grade, were directly associated with significantly higher amounts of total TILs and CD3+ cells present in the TC. Elevated amounts of CD4+ cells in the TC were associated with DTC presence post-NACT
^aLM
^bKruskal-Wallis test
^cSpearman
^dWilcoxon rank sum test