Breast cancer: poor short-term prognosis in cases with moderate lymphocyte infiltration at the tumour edge: a preliminary report.

Lymphocyte infiltration in breast carcinoma has long been associated with favourable prognosis, however it has also been related to poor prognosis. In this study of 128 consecutive cases lymphocyte infiltration, its absence, or presence and degree was recorded at the tumour edge adjacent to fatty tissue in 100 cases, to other tissues in the remaining 28 in which no such edge was found. In the former there was a highly significant prognostic difference between those with moderate infiltration, which was of poor short-term prognosis, and those with other degrees of infiltration (none, slight and marked). Thus, lymphocyte infiltration in breast cancer can give information on both good and poor prognosis in over 80% of cases if its site and degree are taken into consideration. The remaining cases are histologically distinct. Their survival was similar to that in the total material. The mechanisms involved are as yet open to speculation. In view of increasing surgical reluctance to remove the axillary nodes it is of interest that the present investigation can be carried out on the routine diagnostic specimen from the primary and that the relation between survival and axillary nodal status, significant in the total material, no longer held in these groups.