Report on computational assessment of Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes from the International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group

Mohamed Amgad , Elisabeth Specht Stovgaard , Eva Balslev (1) , Jeppe Thagaard , Weijie Chen , Sarah Dudgeon , Ashish Sharma (2) , Jennifer Kerner , Carsten Denkert (3) , Yinyin Yuan , Khalid Abduljabbar , Stephan Wienert , Peter Savas , Leonie Voorwerk , Andrew Beck , Anant Madabhushi , Johan Hartman , Manu Sebastian , Hugo Horlings (4) , Jan Hudeček , Francesco Ciompi , David Moore (5) , Rajendra Singh , Elvire Roblin , Marcelo Luiz Balancin , Marie-Christine Mathieu (6) , Jochen Lennerz , Pawan Kirtani , I-Chun Chen , Jeremy Braybrooke , Giancarlo Pruneri (7) , Sandra Demaria , Sylvia Adams , Stuart Schnitt , Sunil R Lakhani (8) , Federico Rojo (9) , Laura Comerma , Sunil Badve , Mehrnoush Khojasteh , W Fraser Symmans , Christos Sotiriou (10) , Paula Gonzalez-Ericsson , Katherine Pogue-Geile , Rim Kim , David Rimm , Giuseppe Viale (11) , Stephen Hewitt , John Bartlett (12) , Frédérique Penault-Llorca (13, 14) , Shom Goel , Huang-Chun Lien , Sibylle Loibl (15) , Zuzana Kos , Sherene Loi (16) , Matthew Hanna , Stefan Michiels (17, 18, 19) , Marleen Kok (20) , Torsten Nielsen , Alexander J Lazar (21) , Zsuzsanna Bago-Horvath (22) , Loes Kooreman , Jeroen van Der Laak , Joel Saltz , Brandon Gallas , Uday Kurkure (23) , Michael Barnes , Roberto Salgado (16) , Lee Cooper

1 Department of Pathology
2 The University of Sydney
3 Charité, Institute of Pathology, Translational Tumorpathology Unit
4 Division of Experimental Therapy
5 Innovation North - Faculty of Information and Technology
6 Pathologie morphologique
7 ESMO - European Institute of Oncology [Milan]
8 USQ - University of Southern Queensland
9 IFT - Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC
10 Institut Jules Bordet [Bruxelles]
11 Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
12 USC - University of the Sunshine Coast
13 UNICANCER/CJP - Centre Jean Perrin [Clermont-Ferrand]
14 IMoST - Imagerie Moléculaire et Stratégies Théranostiques
15 GBG - German Breast Group
16 Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory
17 SBE - Service de biostatistique et d'épidémiologie
18 IGR - Institut Gustave Roussy
19 U1018 (Équipe 2) - Oncostat
20 Department of Pathology
21 The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center [Houston]
22 Medizinische Universität Wien = Medical University of Vienna
23 CBL - Computational Biomedicine Lab

Assessment of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is increasingly recognized as an integral part of the prognostic workflow in triple-negative (TNBC) and HER2-positive breast cancer, as well as many other solid tumors. This recognition has come about thanks to standardized visual reporting guidelines, which helped to reduce inter-reader variability. Now, there are ripe opportunities to employ computational methods that extract spatio-morphologic predictive features, enabling computer-aided diagnostics. We detail the benefits of computational TILs assessment, the readiness of TILs scoring for computational assessment, and outline considerations for overcoming key barriers to clinical translation in this arena. Specifically, we discuss: 1. ensuring computational workflows closely capture visual guidelines and standards; 2. challenges and thoughts standards for assessment of algorithms including training, preanalytical, analytical, and clinical validation; 3. perspectives on how to realize the potential of machine learning models and to overcome the perceptual and practical limits of visual scoring.

Mots clés: Breast cancer; Cancer imaging; Prognostic markers; Tumour biomarkers; Tumour immunology

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Cancer

Mohamed Amgad, Elisabeth Specht Stovgaard, Eva Balslev, Jeppe Thagaard, Weijie Chen, et al.. Report on computational assessment of Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes from the International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group. npj Breast Cancer, 2020, 6 (1), pp.16. ⟨10.1038/s41523-020-0154-2⟩. ⟨hal-02882162⟩