Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte stratification of prognostic staging of early-stage triple negative breast cancer.

The importance of integrating biomarkers into the TNM staging has been emphasized in the 8 Edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Staging system. In a pooled analysis of 2148 TNBC-patients in the adjuvant setting, TILs are found to strongly up and downstage traditional pathological-staging in the Pathological and Clinical Prognostic Stage Groups from the AJJC 8 edition Cancer Staging System. This suggest that clinical and research studies on TNBC should take TILs into account in addition to stage, as for example patients with stage II TNBC and high TILs have a better outcome than patients with stage I and low TILs.

Intraepidermal nerve fibre density in cancer patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy.

Background: Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy is a common adverse event in patients receiving vinca alcaloids, platinum derivatives and taxanes. However, the underlying pathogenetic mechanisms have not been completely elucidated. We set up a prospective pilot study on skin biopsies in newly diagnosed cancer patients receiving neurotoxic chemotherapeutic agents as adjuvant treatment in order to study the occurrence of small-fibre pathology and its relationship to clinical symptoms.