Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Breast Cancer Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics;Cancer / Oncology;MRI / PET / Ultrasound Article Date: 22 Feb 2013 - 3:00 PST

Current ratings for: Astronomy Algorithms Help Diagnose Aggressive Tumors

The teams, from Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, and the Department of Oncology and the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in the UK, describe how they adapted the astronomers' image analysis algorithms and tested them on 2,000 breast tumors in a study published online on 19 February in the British Journal of Cancer.

The current method of analyzing tumor aggressiveness relies on skilled pathologists looking down microscopes to spot subtle differences in staining of tumor samples. A computerized approach could speed up this process quite significantly.

The techniques are not unlike those used in immunohistochemistry (IHC), where pathologists gaze down microscopes to pick out subtle differences in staining of tumor cells to distinguish different proteins.

Lead author Dr Raza Ali, a pathology fellow from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, says in a statement:

"We've exploited the natural overlap between the techniques astronomers use to analyse deep sky images from the largest telescopes and the need to pinpoint subtle differences in the staining of tumour samples down the microscope."

Co-author Nicholas Walton, from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, says:

"It's great that our image analysis software, which was originally developed to help, for instance, track down planets harbouring life outside of our Solar system, is now also being used to help improve the outlook for cancer patients, much closer to home."

Each sample went through two assessments: one using manual image analysis with pathologists looking down microscopes, and the other where a computer, equipped with the adapted algorithms, analyzed the images automatically.

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Astronomy Algorithms Help Diagnose Aggressive Tumors