Figure 4

Comparison of the numbers of (a) IL-10-expressing cells and (b) IL-12-expressing cells in tumor-free and tumor-containing sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) of breast cancer patients. Each data point represents the mean number of cells per high-powered field (in five fields) (magnification, × 400) from a paraffin-embedded section analyzed by immunohistochemistry. The horizontal bars represent the median number for each group. A significantly greater number of IL-10-expressing cells were seen in the tumor-free SLNs than in the tumor-containing SLNs (median number, 7.4 versus 0; P = 0.02); a trend toward a greater number of IL-12-expressing cells was seen in the tumor-free SLNs than the tumor-containing SLNs (median number, 2.2 versus 0.5; P = 0.12).