THE RELEVANCE AND IMPORTANCE OF TUMOR INFILTRATING LYMPHOCYTES (TILS) IN BREAST CANCER

Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were evaluated in many cancers like ovarian tumors, endometrial tumors, colon cancer and melanoma. Now there is increasing trend in evaluating TILs in breast cancer. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes gives the patients immune response to the tumor. 100 cases of Modified radical mastectomy specimen were chosen from surgical pathology records. The representative formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples were collected. Detailed history regarding Patients age, sex, side of the breast involved , Grade and neoadjuvant chemotherapy were assessed for 100 cases. Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes are evaluated with Immuno HistoChemistry CD45 and CD3 for 100 cases , in which 93% cases were Infiltrating Ductal carcinoma-NOS cases and 07 % cases are of special types like Mucinous, Metaplastic, Apocrine, and Medullary carcinoma. Results: In our study, Highest incidence of breast carcinoma occur in the age group of 41-50 years. Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma NOS is the most common primary malignant neoplasm of breast constituting 93% of cases. Most of the malignant tumors are left sided. Forty seven percent of cancers are presented in the size range of 2-5cms. Majority of the tumors are of Grade II accounting for 63.5% of all cases. TILs were evaluated with three variables 0- 10 % 20- 40 % and 50- 90 %.Younger the age, more the TILs. Neo adjuvant chemotherapy had significant correlation with TILs (P= 0.05).