Tumour budding, MELF-pattern and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes as possible pathomorphological parameters of the course of endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterine corpus

Aim . To evaluatethe role tumour budding (TB), MELF-pattern and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) as possible prognostic factors of endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterine corpus. Materials and methods . A single-centre, retrospective, observational study was conducted involving 188 patients with endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterine body. 40 patients who had disease recurrence or died directly from progression of endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterine body were the unfavourable outcome group, 148 patients without progression and death from this tumour were the favourable outcome group. Fisher, Yates exact two-sided criteria were used to analyze the data. Survival analysis was performed using log-rank test. The hazard ratio (HR) and its 95 % confidence interval (CI) were estimated using single-factor analysis with log-rank test and multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis. p <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results. TB was observed predominantly in the group of patients with unfavourable outcome ( р <0.0001) Survival analysis revealed statistically significant decreased survival in cases with TB (HR 5.3; 95 % CI 2.2–12.7; р <0.0001) . MELF-pattern was statistically significantly more frequent in the group of patients with unfavourable outcome ( р <0.0001), a decreased survival of patients was observed in the presence of MELF-pattern (HR 5.8; 95 % CI 2.1–16.2; р <0.0001). Comparison of groups according to the number of TILs revealed statistically significant differences (р = 0.0242). When analyzing survival relative to the threshold value of the number of TILs, statistically significant differences were also observed (HR 3.7; 95 % CI 1.7–7.9; р = 0.021). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that only TB and MELF-pattern had prognostic significance for recurrence-free survival (HR 3.7; 95 % CI 1.8–7.4; р <0.001). Conclusion . TB and MELF-pattern are specific changes in the stroma of endometrioid adenocarcinoma stroma of the uterine corpus that can be used as pathomorphological predictors of clinical outcome.