New Test Enhances Insights into Breast Cancer and Immune Response

Research from King’s College London reveals that a simple, minimally invasive test can provide significant insights into how the immune system responds to breast cancer. The study suggests that the fine needle aspiration (FNA) technique, already in routine clinical use, can enhance assessments of disease risk without requiring additional procedures for patients.

Doctors routinely evaluate whether breast cancer has metastasized to the axillary lymph nodes under the arm, as this information is crucial for determining appropriate treatment options. The study, published in the journal Cancers, focuses on FNA, which involves using a thin needle to collect a small sample of cells from lymph nodes. This technique is commonly employed before surgery to check for cancer cells.

Immune Profiling Enhances Risk Assessment

The research indicates that these small samples can also be utilized to analyze immune cells within the lymph nodes. This new approach may provide critical information regarding how the body is responding to cancer and the extent of the disease. Traditionally, lymph node assessments concentrate solely on the presence of tumor cells. However, lymph nodes serve as essential hubs for immune activity, making understanding immune cell behavior vital for assessing patient health.

Researchers optimized the FNA technique to profile tumor-free axillary lymph nodes from individuals diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite the limited size of the samples, they successfully identified a diverse array of immune cells, including prevalent T cells and rarer populations that are crucial for immune defense. The composition of immune cells within the lymph nodes appeared to reflect the cancer’s presence in the axillary lymph node chain, suggesting that FNA-based immune profiling could provide indirect insights into tumor burden, even in nodes devoid of cancer cells.

Potential to Personalize Treatment

One of the key advantages of this method is that it does not necessitate new or invasive procedures. FNA is already part of routine pre-operative care for evaluating lymph nodes for cancer spread. Dr. Kalnisha Naidoo, Adjunct/Honorary Senior Lecturer in Translational Pathology at King’s College London and senior author of the study, stated, “This represents an important first step towards preventing over-treatment of the axilla. By using a minimally invasive technique that is already part of routine clinical care, we hope that in future we will be able to identify which patients can safely avoid axillary surgery, while still ensuring that those at higher risk receive the most appropriate treatment.”

While the study’s findings are promising, the researchers underscore the need for larger studies to confirm whether immune profiling via FNA can reliably predict cancer spread and influence patient outcomes. The results suggest that this technique could help distinguish between patients at higher and lower risk of further cancer spread, ultimately supporting more personalized treatment strategies and potentially sparing some patients from unnecessary surgical interventions.

The research, titled “Immune Profiling the Axilla with Fine Needle Aspiration Is Feasible to Risk-Stratify Breast Cancer,” was co-authored by Jasmine A. Gore and published in Cancers in 2026. The study’s implications could markedly improve the way clinicians approach breast cancer treatment, emphasizing the significance of immune system evaluation in managing the disease.