An artificial intelligence (AI) model could help doctors predict more accurately whether an aggressive kind of breast cancer will spread.
Since the lymph nodes under the arm are one of the first locations breast cancer can spread in people with triple negative breast cancer, scientists in London have created a system to identify alterations in these tissues.
Patients in these situations will probably require more extensive care, but the AI model, according to experts, could aid in treatment planning and provide patients with comfort over the possibility of triple-negative breast cancer spreading.
Dr Anita Grigoriadis, who led the research at the Breast Cancer Now Unit at King’s College London, said: “By demonstrating that lymph node changes can predict if triple negative breast cancer will spread, we’ve built on our growing knowledge of the important role that immune response can play in understanding a patient’s prognosis.
“We’ve taken these findings from under the microscope and translated them into a deep-learning framework to create an AI model to potentially help doctors treat and care for patients, providing them with another tool in their arsenal for helping to prevent secondary breast cancer.”
Around one in seven, or 15 per cent, of all breast cancers in the UK are triple negative, with more than 8,000 cases a year.
This type of cancer does not have any of the receptors (proteins) commonly found in breast cancer and accounts for around 25 per cent of breast cancer deaths.
