AI Improving Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Pathologists studying a molecular genetic changes on the computer screen that will allow personalized therapy. A team of researchers from th...

Pathologists studying a molecular genetic changes on the computer screen that will allow personalized therapy.

A team of researchers from the University of Cologne's Faculty of Medicine in Cologne, Germany led by Dr Yuri Tolkach and Professor Dr Reinhard Büttner, has created a digital pathology platform based on artificial intelligence. The platform uses new algorithms developed by the team and enables fully automated analysis of tissue sections from lung cancer patients. 

The platform makes it possible to analyse digitized tissue samples on the computer for lung tumours more quickly and accurately than before. The study 'Next generation lung cancer pathology: development and validation of diagnostic and prognostic algorithms' has been published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

Lung cancer is one of the most common illnesses affecting humans and has a very high mortality rate. Over the years, the diagnosis and treatment for patients with lung cancer is determined by pathological examination. But today, pathology has undergone digitalization and transformation. As a result, microscopes are no longer needed. Typical tissue sections are digitized and then analyzed on a computer screen using artificial intelligence to extract a well-detailed metastasis from pathological tissue sections, which would not be possible without AI technology.

"We also show how the platform could be used to develop new clinical tools. The new tools can not only improve the quality of diagnosis, but also provide new types of information about the patient's disease, such as how the patient is responding to treatment," explained physician Dr Yuri Tolkach from the Institute of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomy at University Hospital Cologne, who led the study.

In order to prove the broad applicability of the platform, the research team will conduct a validation study together with five pathological institutes in Germany, Austria and Japan.