Self-Supervised Learning Reveals Clinically Relevant Histomorphological Patterns for Therapeutic Strategies in Colon Cancer.

Self-supervised learning (SSL) automates the extraction and interpretation of histopathology features on unannotated hematoxylin-and-eosin-stained whole-slide images (WSIs). We trained an SSL Barlow Twins-encoder on 435 TCGA colon adenocarcinoma WSIs to extract features from small image patches. Leiden community detection then grouped tiles into histomorphological phenotype clusters (HPCs).

Characteristics of tumour stroma in regional lymph node metastases in colorectal cancer patients: a theoretical framework for future diagnostic imaging with FAPI PET/CT.

Purpose: The recently developed fibroblast activation protein inhibitor (FAPI) tracer for PET/CT, binding tumour-stromal cancer-associated fibroblasts, is a promising tool for detection of positive lymph nodes. This study provides an overview of features, including sizes and tumour-stromal content, of lymph nodes and their respective lymph node metastases (LNM) in colorectal cancer (CRC), since literature lacks on whether LNMs contain sufficient stroma to potentially allow FAPI-based tumour detection.

Methods: Haematoxylin and eosin-stained tissue slides from 73 stage III colon cancer patients were included.

The Stroma Liquid Biopsy Panel Contains a Stromal-Epithelial Gene Signature Ratio That Is Associated with the Histologic Tumor-Stroma Ratio and Predicts Survival in Colon Cancer.

Liquid biopsy has emerged as a novel approach to tumor characterization, offering advantages in sample accessibility and tissue heterogeneity. However, as mutational analysis predominates, the tumor microenvironment has largely remained unacknowledged in liquid biopsy research. The current work provides an explorative transcriptomic characterization of the Stroma Liquid Biopsy (SLB) proteomics panel in colon carcinoma by integrating single-cell and bulk transcriptomics data from publicly available repositories.

Combined Assessment of the Tumor-Stroma Ratio and Tumor Immune Cell Infiltrate for Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy Response Prediction in Colon Cancer.

The best current biomarker strategies for predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy fail to account for interpatient variability in response rates. The histologic tumor-stroma ratio (TSR) quantifies intratumoral stromal content and was recently found to be predictive of response to neoadjuvant therapy in multiple cancer types. In the current work, we predicted the likelihood of ICI therapy responsivity of 335 therapy-naive colon adenocarcinoma tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas, using bioinformatics approaches.

Combined anteroposterior fixation using a titanium cage versus solely posterior fixation for traumatic thoracolumbar fractures: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Study Design: Systematic review with meta-analysis.

Objective: Additional anterior stabilization might prevent posterior implant failure, but over time, the disadvantageous of bone grafts have become evident. The objective of this systematic review was to compare risks and advantages of additional anterior stabilization with a titanium cage to solely posterior fixation for traumatic thoracolumbar fractures.