Tumoral Densities of T-Cells and Mast Cells Are Associated With Recurrence in Early-Stage Lung Adenocarcinoma.

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the United States and worldwide, and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most prevalent histologic subtype in the United States. LUAD exhibits a wide range of aggressiveness and risk of recurrence, but the biological underpinnings of this behavior are poorly understood. Past studies have focused on the biological characteristics of the tumor itself, but the ability of the immune response to contain tumor growth represents an alternative or complementary hypothesis. Emerging technologies enable us to investigate the spatial distribution of specific cell types within the tumor nest and characterize this immune response. This study aimed to investigate the association between immune cell density within the primary tumor and recurrence-free survival (RFS) in stage I and II LUAD.