Table 2 Characteristics of a good marker and of the Immunoscore

Routine

YES

Technic to be performed by pathologist using bright field and precise cell evaluation

Feasible

YES

Established pathology technics, using 2 regular whole slide FFPE section

Inexpensive

YES

Automatized immunohistochemistry

Rapid

YES

2 simple staining less costly than complicated molecular techniccs

Robust

YES

Autostainers, scanner, and digital pathology reduce the time to perform an Immunoscore

Reproducible

YES

Two strong membrane staining, with no background, allowing the numeration of individual cells

Quantitative

YES

Inter-observers variability is removed by the use of digital pathology, taking into account cell location and counts

Standardized

YES

Standardized operating procedure should be performed to insure reproducibility and worldwide comparisons

Pathology-base

YES

Necessity of pathologist expertise to validate cell type, cell location, and cell counts performed by digital pathology

Powerful

YES

The immunoscore has a prognostic value highly significant even in Cox multivariate including TNM classification¹³