Tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) is a significant prognostic parameter for triple negative breast carcinomas (TNBC) due to being a target for immunotherapeutic agents and its essential role during the cancer immunoediting process. In this study, CD8, FOXP3, CD163, PD-L1/SP142 and PD-L1/SP263 antibodies were examined in a sample of 51 TNBC cases. Patients who received neoadjuvant therapy were excluded. CD8, FOXP3 and CD163 antibodies were evaluated separately in intratumoral area (ITA) and tumor stroma (TS). PD-L1 status was also examined in tumor cells (TC) and immune cells (IC) using both SP142 and SP263 antibodies. In multivariate Cox regressions, the only antibody that was found to be significantly associated with survival was SP142. SP142-positivity in TC and IC was related to increased overall survival. Higher CD163 expression in ITA and SP263-positivity in IC were associated with younger age. Lymphatic/angioinvasion was more frequent in cases with negative/low CD8 and FOXP3 expressions. Moreover, metastatic axillary lymph node(s) was associated with negative/low FOXP3 expression in TS. CD8, FOXP3, CD163, SP142 and SP263 expressions were positively correlated with each other, except a mild discordance caused by CD163 in ITA. Although PD-L1 status with both SP142 and SP263 antibodies were concordant in the majority of cases, 33.3% and 13.7% of the cases showed SP142-negative/SP263-positive pattern in TC and IC respectively. In conclusion, we suggest that composition, density and localization of the immune cells and the check point molecules are important prognostic parameters in TNBC. Immunohistochemistry can be used as an accessible and less expensive tool to demonstrate TIME.

肿瘤免疫微环境 (TIME) 是三阴性乳腺癌 (TNBC) 的重要预后参数，因为它是免疫治疗药物的靶点及其在癌症免疫编辑过程中的重要作用。在这项研究中，对 51 例 TNBC 病例样本中的 CD8、FOXP3、CD163、PD-L1/SP142 和 PD-L1/SP263 抗体进行了检测。接受新辅助治疗的患者被排除在外。 CD8、FOXP3 和 CD163 抗体分别在瘤内区域 (ITA) 和肿瘤基质 (TS) 中进行评估。还使用 SP142 和 SP263 抗体检查了肿瘤细胞 (TC) 和免疫细胞 (IC) 中的 PD-L1 状态。在多变量 Cox 回归中，唯一发现与生存显着相关的抗体是 SP142。 TC 和 IC 中的 SP142 阳性与总生存期增加有关。 ITA 中较高的 CD163 表达和 IC 中 SP263 阳性与年轻相关。在 CD8 和 FOXP3 表达阴性/低的病例中，淋巴/血管侵袭更为常见。此外，转移性腋窝淋巴结与 TS 中 FOXP3 阴性/低表达相关。 CD8、FOXP3、CD163、SP142 和 SP263 表达彼此呈正相关，但 ITA 中 CD163 引起的轻微不一致除外。尽管大多数病例中 SP142 和 SP263 抗体的 PD-L1 状态一致，但 TC 和 IC 中分别有 33.3% 和 13.7% 的病例显示 SP142 阴性/SP263 阳性模式。总之，我们认为免疫细胞和检查点分子的组成、密度和定位是 TNBC 的重要预后参数。免疫组织化学可作为一种易于使用且成本较低的工具来证明 TIME。