# Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS)

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/tertiary-lymphoid-structures/  
OnCo record `tertiary-lymphoid-structures` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Tertiary lymphoid structures are organised clusters of immune cells that form inside tumours and resemble small lymph nodes; their presence is linked to better immunotherapy outcomes.

## Summary

Sautès-Fridman and colleagues review tertiary lymphoid structures as organised aggregates of B cells, T cells and dendritic cells that develop in chronically inflamed tissues including tumours, where they are generally associated with longer survival and response to checkpoint inhibitors. Because they are visible on H&E and spatial assays, they are a known-biology probe: a slide or spatial model that recovers TLS is learning something real.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Also known as: tertiary lymphoid structures; tertiary lymphoid structure; TLS
- Tags: cansim-terms

## Notes

- Listed in the CanSim terms map 1.0.0 (docs/onco/terms.json, generated 2026-09-24), CC BY 4.0, attribution: CanSim project, an open, public-data-first cancer foundation-model programme; CanSim page path /terms/tertiary-lymphoid-structures.

## Sources

- Sautès-Fridman et al., Tertiary lymphoid structures in the era of cancer immunotherapy (Nature Reviews Cancer 2019): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-019-0144-6

## Connected records

- terms: [Cancer AI vocabulary (CanSim terms map)](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-ai-vocabulary/), [Immunotherapy response and its prediction](https://onco.cc/terms/immunotherapy-response/), [Mechanism-of-action recovery and known-biology probes](https://onco.cc/terms/mechanism-of-action-recovery/), [Microenvironment and inflammation: tumours as wounds that do not heal](https://onco.cc/terms/microenvironment-inflammation-theory/)
- technologies: [Spatial transcriptomics](https://onco.cc/technologies/spatial-transcriptomics/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/tertiary-lymphoid-structures.json