Abstract PO1-07-01: Artificial intelligence-based prediction of Oncotype DX Score from whole slide images using human-interpretable features and breast biomarkers

Abstract Background The Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score assay (ODX) is a commonly used genomic test for patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative, early-stage invasive breast cancer. While ODX predicts patients’ recurrence risk and benefit from chemotherapy, it is tissue and time-consuming, and expensive. Previous deep-learning or non-linear ODX prediction models achieved promising performance using whole-slide images (WSI) or with other covariates (e.g., ER, progesterone receptor (PR), HER-2, Ki-67 scores and tumor stage) but systematic quantification of the contribution of individual histological features to the ODX score remained challenging. Here, we extracted a rich set of human-interpretable features (HIFs) quantifying nuclear morphology and the distribution of cells and tissues in the tumor microenvironment. We used these HIFs, along with manually assessed ER, PR, HER-2 scores, and tumor stage, to predict ODX scores. We also explored the role of Ki-67 features in augmenting our model predictions Methods We developed machine learning models to extract cell, tissue, and nuclear HIFs from WSI stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) against Ki-67. These models were deployed on 353 H&E WSI to extract 276 HIFs quantifying cell densities, tissue areas, relative cell counts, and nuclei size, shape and color. Hierarchical agglomerative clustering was applied to cluster these features into 11 groups. Univariate regression was performed to identify correlations between ODX scores and feature clusters. To predict ODX score using HIFs, a multivariable regression model was fitted to the data where regressors are representative features from each cluster, in addition to ER, PR, HER-2 scores and stage as covariates. The model was fitted on the training set (N=266 slides) and evaluated on the held-out test set (N=87 slides). To examine the utility of Ki-67 IHC features in ODX prediction, a Ki-67 model was deployed on a subset of 194 matched Ki-67 IHC WSI to extract count proportions and densities of Ki-67 positive cells in cancer epithelium and stroma. Results Significant positive correlations were identified between ODX scores and feature clusters corresponding to cancer cell density (p < 10-7), macrophage density (p < 10-4), immune cell density (p < 10-16), and variations in cancer nuclear size (p < 10-5) and color (p < 10-3). Significant negative correlations were observed between ODX scores and clusters related to fibroblast density (p < 10-3), and variations of non-cancer cell nuclear color (p = 0.02). Evaluation of our model’s ability to predict ODX scores revealed an association between predicted and observed scores (Pearson r = 0.74). The AUROC for model predictions of high/low classifications (with reference to a cutoff ODX score of 20) was 0.80. Ki-67 features were clustered together with H&E cancer cell density features and showed a stronger correlation with ODX scores compared to the H&E features alone. Combining Ki-67 cell density features with H&E features led to increased performance of the multivariable regression model on the test set compared to H&E features only (r = 0.62 vs. r = 0.59). However, a model combining Ki-67, H&E and covariates performed similarly to a model with H&E and covariates (r = 0.73), suggesting that Ki-67 features may not be needed for ODX prediction when H&E and covariate information is available. Conclusions Our model predicts ODX recurrence scores with comparable performance to other black-box approaches using WSI and breast biomarker status and without the need for, Ki-67 features. Using readily available information, our model has the potential to be a convenient screening tool for patient stratification, which may lead to better patient care, lower costs, and faster treatment. Citation Format: Nhat Le, John Van Arnam, Christian Kirkup, Ylaine Gerardin, Michael Drage, Neha Khaitan, Anurag Sharma, Georgi Galev, Nicholas Indorf, Emily Sansevere, Ilan Wapinski, Stephanie Hennek, Gloria Zhang. Artificial intelligence-based prediction of Oncotype DX Score from whole slide images using human-interpretable features and breast biomarkers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO1-07-01.