An image analysis method for tumor classification, the method comprising: - receiving, by an image analysis system, at least one digital image of a tissue sample; - analyzing, by the image analysis system, the at least one received image for identifying immune cells and tumor cells in the at least one received image; - for each of the identified tumor cells, determining, by the image analysis system, the distance of said tumor cell to the nearest immune cell; - computing, by the image analysis system, a proximity measure as a function of the determined distances, the computation of the proximity measure as a function of the determined distances comprising: • generating a histogram (502-506; 602-616; 910, 912) of the distances of the tumor cells to their respective nearest one of the identified immune cells, the histogram comprising at least two distance bins, the histogram covering a distance range of 0 μm to at least 50 μm, each of the bins corresponding to a bar of the histogram, each of the bars indicating a count of the identified tumor cells having a distance to their nearest immune cell that falls into said bin; • connecting the upper end of the first one of the bars with the upper end of the last one of the bars with a line, the first bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the smallest distances, the last bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the largest distances of the distance range; • determining the slope of the line; • using the slope as the proximity measure, wherein in case the slope indicates that the tumor cell count of the first bar is higher than the tumor cell count of the last bar, the classification result is that the identified tumor cells belong to an inflammatory tumor; - in dependence on the proximity measure, classifying, by the image analysis system, the identified tumor cells into tumor cells of an inflammatory tumor or as tumor cells of a non-inflammatory tumor; and - storing, by the image analysis system, the classification result on a storage medium and/or displaying the classification result on a display device. - receiving, by an image analysis system, at least one digital image of a tissue sample; - analyzing, by the image analysis system, the at least one received image for identifying immune cells and tumor cells in the at least one received image; - for each of the identified tumor cells, determining, by the image analysis system, the distance of said tumor cell to the nearest immune cell; - computing, by the image analysis system, a proximity measure as a function of the determined distances, the computation of the proximity measure as a function of the determined distances comprising: • generating a histogram (502-506; 602-616; 910, 912) of the distances of the tumor cells to their respective nearest one of the identified immune cells, the histogram comprising at least two distance bins, the histogram covering a distance range of 0 μm to at least 50 μm, each of the bins corresponding to a bar of the histogram, each of the bars indicating a count of the identified tumor cells having a distance to their nearest immune cell that falls into said bin; • connecting the upper end of the first one of the bars with the upper end of the last one of the bars with a line, the first bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the smallest distances, the last bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the largest distances of the distance range; • determining the slope of the line; • using the slope as the proximity measure, wherein in case the slope indicates that the tumor cell count of the first bar is higher than the tumor cell count of the last bar, the classification result is that the identified tumor cells belong to an inflammatory tumor; • generating a histogram (502-506; 602-616; 910, 912) of the distances of the tumor cells to their respective nearest one of the identified immune cells, the histogram comprising at least two distance bins, the histogram covering a distance range of 0 μm to at least 50 μm, each of the bins corresponding to a bar of the histogram, each of the bars indicating a count of the identified tumor cells having a distance to their nearest immune cell that falls into said bin; • connecting the upper end of the first one of the bars with the upper end of the last one of the bars with a line, the first bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the smallest distances, the last bar corresponding to the one of the bins covering the largest distances of the distance range; • determining the slope of the line; • using the slope as the proximity measure, wherein in case the slope indicates that the tumor cell count of the first bar is higher than the tumor cell count of the last bar, the classification result is that the identified tumor cells belong to an inflammatory tumor; - in dependence on the proximity measure, classifying, by the image analysis system, the identified tumor cells into tumor cells of an inflammatory tumor or as tumor cells of a non-inflammatory tumor; and - storing, by the image analysis system, the classification result on a storage medium and/or displaying the classification result on a display device.