Classification of these subtypes and assessment of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes are very important, in tumour behaviour, prognosis and their treatment.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in females worldwide. It is particularly important for health systems and there is lots of research about it because its treatment and prognosis depend on the patient’s histopathologic and immunohistochemical features and these are different for each patient.
In the Clarify project, my role is about Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). It is a special group as it is a highly aggressive disease with poorer prognosis and covers 10-15% of all breast cancer. TNBC lacks an Estrogen receptor, Progesterone receptor and absence of HER2 expression. It is a heterogenous disease and involves a lot of histological and molecular subtypes. Classification of these subtypes and assessment of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes are very important in determining tumour behaviour, prognosis and their treatment. Chemotherapy or immunotherapy regimen is used; however, some patients don’t benefit from them. The main focus of my research is to identify the reasons for the difference between them and this provides personalized treatment.
In Clarify, I study with histopathological patterns and features of TNBC by image analysis. I annotate relevant features in the Whole-Slide Images of TNBC in order to be able to train the Deep Learning algorithms and improve the reproducibility and prognostic value of the diagnosis. We aim to generate information regarding the risk of cancer recurrence and progression through Artificial Intelligence using Neural Networks and to predict the outcome for certain therapy regimens. This is a new and evolving field of medicine. In the future, it will be very useful for pathologists.
We are a large multidisciplinary team of both pathologists and engineers. I am lucky to have learned a lot in different fields and to be a part of the project. In my next post, I will give more detailed information. Thank you for your interest.
Umay kiraz – ESR11.