Computerized Assessment of the Tumor-stromal Ratio and Proposal of a Novel Nomogram for Predicting Survival in Invasive Breast Cancer
Qian Xu, Feng Xiao, Yuanyuan Chen, Jingping Yuan, Xiaohong Liu, Lin‐Wei Wang, Bin Xiong
Abstract
Background: Various studies have verified the prognostic significance of the tumor-stromal ratio (TSR) in several types of carcinomas using manually assessed H&E stained histologic sections. This study aimed to establish a computerized method to assess the TSR in invasive breast cancer (BC) using immunohistochemistry (IHC)-stained tissue microarrays (TMAs), and integrate the TSR into a novel nomogram for predicting survival. Methods: IHC-staining of cytokeratin (CK) was performed in 7 prepared TMAs containing 240 patients with 480 invasive BC specimens. The ratio of tumor areas and stromal areas was determined by the computerized method, and categorized as stroma-low and stroma-high groups using the X-tile software. The prognostic value of the TSR at 5-year disease free survival (5-DFS) in each subgroup was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed and a novel nomogram for predicting survival in invasive breast cancer was established and assessed.