Ten-year clinical outcome, toxicity and compliance of dose-dense sequential adjuvant administration of cyclophosphamide & epirubicin followed by docetaxel in patients with early breast cancer: A hellenic cooperative oncology group observational study (HE 10/10) with concurrent investigation of significance of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes

•Dose-dense sequential chemotherapy has changed the clinical outcome of patients with early breast cancer.•Its effectiveness has never been studied in conjunction with tumor microenvironment in a homogeneous population of Greek-Caucasian origin.•Long-term survival benefit in terms of DFS and OS as well as safety was confirmed.•Higher TILs and CD8-positive T cells in the tumor microenvironment were associated with an improved long-term survival outcome.