Characterization of immune infiltrate in early breast cancer based on a multiplex imaging method

Sammanfattning: Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women worldwide. Multiple studies have reported the role of tumor-immune interactions and mechanisms that the immune system uses to combat tumor cells. Therapies based on the immune response are evolving by time, but more research is required to understand and identify the patterns and relationships within the tumor microenvironment. This study aims to characterize immune cell expression patterns using a multiplex method and to investigate the way different subpopulations in breast cancer patients’ tissue samples are correlated with clinicopathological characteristics. The results of this study indicate that there must be an association within immune cell composition and clinicopathological characteristics (Estrogen Receptor Status (ER+/ER-), Progesterone Receptor (PR+/PR-), Grade (I,II,III), which is a way to characterize the cancer cells on how similar they look to normal ones, Menopause, Tumor size, Nodal status, HR status, HER2) but validation in larger patient population is required in order to evaluate the role of the immune infiltration as a predictive / prognostic biomarker in early breast cancer.