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Introduction: The association between inflammatory blood markers (IBMs) (monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio [MLR], neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio [NLR], and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio [PLR]) and breast cancer has been extensively studied. However, the predictive role of IBMs in the neoadjuvant response of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer remains unclear. Methods: This study included 744 patients with HER2 positive breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant therapy. Baseline MLR, NLR, and PLR data were collected to investigate the association between IBMs and pathological complete response (pCR). Results: MLR, NLR, and PLR were not associated with neoadjuvant response in the overall population before and after matching. Subgroup analysis stratified by neoadjuvant therapy suggested that these IBMs play a diverse predictive role in response to chemotherapy alone and chemotherapy plus anti-HER2 therapy. A high MLR and NLR, but not PLR, were associated with lower pCR rates in HER2-targeted therapy (MLR: OR=0.67, P =0.023; NLR: OR=0.665, P =0.02; PLR: OR=0.801, P =0.203). Among the anti-HER2 treatment population, patients with a high MLRs (pCR rate, 40.2%) could be divided into MLRhigh/NLRhigh (pCR rate, 36.3%) and MLRhigh/NLRlow (pCR rate, 48.9%) groups when the NLR was considered. The pCR rates of the MLRhigh/NLRlow and low-MLR groups were similar (pCR rate, 47.6%). A comparable stratification effect was observed in patients with high NLR. Conclusions: IBMs play a diverse predictive role in pCR in HER2-positive breast cancer stratified by neoadjuvant regimens. The combination of high MLR and high NLR enabled better identification of patients with poor responses to anti-HER2 therapy than high MLR or NLR alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Immunochemotherapy has become the first‐line treatment for initial diagnosed metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (mNPC). Loco‐regional radiotherapy combined with systemic chemotherapy significantly improves the survival. However, the safety and efficacy of loco‐regional radiotherapy combined with immunochemotherapy remained unknown. Methods: Patients with de novo mNPC who received immunochemotherapy followed by loco‐regional radiotherapy were included from two cancer centers. Toxicity and treatment response were assessed using CTCAE 5.0 and RECIST 1.1, respectively. Overall survival (OS) and progression‐free survival (PFS) were analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier method. Results: From 2019 to 2021, a total of 16 patients were retrospectively analyzed. The median follow‐up was 28 months (range 14–47 months). No one died. One‐year, 2‐year, and 3‐year PFS rate was 93.8%, 58.4% and 50.1%, respectively. Radiotherapy‐related acute severe (grade 3 or higher) toxicity was dermatitis (1/16, 6.3%) and mucositis (2/16, 12.5%). Conclusions: Loco‐regional radiotherapy provided a promising efficacy with modest toxicity for patients with mNPC who received immunochemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the new breast cancer susceptibility loci discovered in recent Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have not been confirmed in Chinese populations. To determine whether eight novel Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) have associations with breast cancer risk in women from southeast China, we conducted a case-control study of 1,156 breast cancer patients and 1,256 healthy controls. We first validated that the SNPs rs12922061, rs2290203, and rs2981578 were associated with overall breast cancer risk in southeast Chinese women, with the per-allele OR of 1.209 (95%CI: 1.064-1.372), 1.176 (95%CI: 1.048-1.320), and 0.852 (95%CI: 0.759-0.956), respectively. Rs12922061 and rs2290203 even passed the threshold for Bonferroni correction (P value: 0.00625). In stratified analysis, we found another three SNPs were significantly associated within different subgroups. However, after Bonferroni correction (P value: 0.000446), there were no statistically significant was observed. In gene-environment interaction analysis, we observed gene-environment interactions played a potential role of in the risk of breast cancer. These findings provide new insight into the associations between the genetic susceptibility and fine classifications of breast cancer. Based on these results, we encourage further large series studies and functional research to confirm these finding.

Introduction: Although breast-conserving therapy (BCT) promises at least a similar survival rate for patients with early breast cancer compared with mastectomy, its efficacy in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive tumors remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted this study to explore differential effects of BCT and mastectomy on survival outcomes of patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer. Methods: Data were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, and basic characteristics of patients who received either BCT or mastectomy were balanced using propensity score matching (PSM). Kaplan-Meier analysis, log-rank testing, and Cox proportional hazards regression were performed. Results: In total, 20,277 patients were diagnosed with T1-2N0-1M0 HER2-positive breast cancer between 2010 and 2015. After PSM, 6,185 pairs of patients were enrolled for further analysis. Compared with those undergoing mastectomy, patients receiving BCT had superior overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR], 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.55–0.73; p < 0.001) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) (HR: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.48–0.71; p < 0.001). The subgroup analyses revealed that survival outcomes (OS and BCSS) of BCT were better than those of mastectomy among estrogen receptor (ER)+/progesterone receptor (PR)+/HER2+, ER+/PR−/HER2+, and ER−/PR−/HER2+ subtypes (p < 0.05 for all); however, patients with ER−/PR+/HER2+ subtypes who underwent BCT had similar OS and BCSS (p > 0.05 for both) to those treated with mastectomy. Discussion/Conclusion: Despite the aggressiveness of the disease, we found that BCT may confer better long-term survival than mastectomy for patients with T1-2N0-1M0 HER2-positive breast cancer, particularly for those with ER+/PR+/HER2+, ER+/PR−/HER2+, and ER−/PR−/HER2+ subtypes. In addition, our study provided insights into the clinical applications of BCT. However, this retrospective study has introduced several inevitable limitations, and further prospective research is warranted to verify these conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) was introduced to label‐freely obtain tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) images from a total of 611 patients, and the prognostic value of TILs in breast cancer was assessed by the MPM method (TILs‐MPM) and guidelines method proposed by the International Immuno‐Oncology Biomarker Working Group (TILs‐WG), respectively. Moreover, the clinical (CLI) model, TILs‐WG + TILs‐MPM model, and full model (CLI + TILs‐WG + TILs‐MPM) were developed to investigate the prognostic value of TILs. The results show that TILs‐WG performs better in estrogen receptor (ER)‐negative subgroup, and TILs‐MPM is comparable with TILs‐WG in the ER‐negative subgroup, but has the best performance in the ER‐positive subgroup. Furthermore, the TILs‐WG + TILs‐MPM model can significantly improve the prognostic power compared with the TILs‐WG model, and the full model has excellent performance, with high area under the curve (AUC) and hazard ratio (HR) in both ER‐positive, ER‐negative subgroups, and the complete cohort. Our results suggest that the combination of TILs‐WG with TILs‐MPM model can greatly improve the prognostic value of TILs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]