Breast cancer often spreads through the lymph nodes in the arm pits (so-called axillary lymph nodes), and whether these lymph nodes are tumor-free or contain small metastases is an important factor in the decision of how aggressively to treat a patient. Peter Lee and colleagues (from Stanford University) now report in the open access journal PLoS Medicine that looking at the immune status of lymph nodes might teach us even more about a specific breast tumor. They found that the ‘immune profile’ (i.e. the number and composition of immune cells) of an axillary lymph node can independently predict the chances that the cancer will come back. This suggests that lymph node immune profiles can help to inform individualized treatment decisions.
