Prognostic significance of FOXP3+tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in Basrah women of breast cancer

Abstract

Objective: FOXP3 is a forkhead box transcription factor, a defining hall mark of Treg cells, and its functions as the master regulator in the development and function of regulatory T cell. Treg cells are sub set of T lymphocytes that the main functions regulate the immune response through suppress the proliferation and cytokines production of effector T lymphocyte. The infiltration of FOXP3+ regulatory T cells into invasive tumors has been reported to be associated with survival in a variety of cancers. The prognostic significance of FOXP3+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in breast cancer, however, remains controversial. We investigated whether there were significant numbers of FOXP3-positive Tregs in breast cancer using immunohistochemistry, and whether the presence of FOXP3-positive Tregs was associated with other prognostic factors, such as stage or histologic grade, receptor status, lymph node involve and metastasis. Methods: A tissue microarray (TMA) including 24 ductal and 11 lobular breast cancers was stained with antibodies recognizing FOXP3 by immunohistochemical techniques. Foxp3+Lymphocyte counts were correlated with clinicopathological parameters. Results: The Foxp3-positive was more prevalent whereas Foxp3-negative was rare. Lymph node displayed significantly (p < 0.01) higher FOXP3+ lymphocyte infiltration and no metastasis was also significant (P˂0.02) associated with higher FOXP3+ TIL counts. In contrast, FOXP3+ lymphocyte infiltration was not linked with other clinic pathological parameters. Conclusion: Our results showed a significant increase in the proportion of these cells in the tissue of breast cancer patients. The prognostic value of FOXP3+ TILs in breast cancer differs depending on lymph node and metastasis. Copyright©2018, Hadeel S. Touma This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.