Table 2.
Immune cells and other non-cancer cells as the biomarkers for breast cancer.
| Cell Types | Prognosis/Treatment | References |
|---|---|---|
| T cells (Tregs) | better prognosis in lymph node negative, primary breast cancer patients including those with stages I–III. | [32,33,34,101,102,103] |
| CD8 T cells | were predictive for response to checkpoint inhibitors. | [104] |
| B cells | 1. better prognosis in lymph node negative, primary breast cancer patients including those with stages I–III, ER- breast cancer, highly proliferating luminal B breast cancer, and 2. improved outcome in HR+ breast cancer. |
[101,102,105,106] |
| Plasma cells | better prognosis in ER- breast cancer and highly proliferating luminal B breast cancer. | [106] |
| TILs | 1. The frequency of TILs is usually high in the more aggressive breast cancer subtypes. TIL frequency was found to be a superior prognostic marker; 2. were predictive for response to checkpoint inhibitors, 3. was associated with improved responses to trastuzumab or lapatinib in HER2+ breast cancer. |
[33,104,106,107,108] |
| Macrophages | associate with survival in basal-like breast cancer. | [103,108,109,110] |
| MDSCs | are correlated with poor survival in ER- tumors. | [109,110] |
| Neutrophils | 1. are associated with poor breast cancer survival; 2. inhibiting leukotriene-generating enzyme arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase (Alox5) abrogates neutrophil pro-metastatic activity and consequently reduces metastasis. |
[108,111] |
| NK cells | were found significantly depleted from peripheral blood compared to pretreatment levels after chemotherapy. | [102] |
| myeloid dendritic cell | improved outcome in HR+ breast cancer. | [105] |
| astrocytes | may provide new opportunities for effective anti-metastasis therapies, especially for brain metastasis patients. | [112] |