Volume 13, Issue 11 e202000188
FULL ARTICLE

Peri-tumoural stroma collagen organization of invasive ductal carcinoma assessed by polarized light microscopy differs between OncotypeDX risk group

Blake Jones

Blake Jones

Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

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Georgia Thomas

Georgia Thomas

Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

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Jillian Sprenger

Jillian Sprenger

Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

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Sharon Nofech-Mozes

Sharon Nofech-Mozes

Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

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Mohammadali Khorasani

Mohammadali Khorasani

Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia, Victoria, Canada

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Alex Vitkin

Corresponding Author

Alex Vitkin

Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Division of Biophysics and Bioimaging, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada

Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Correspondence

Alex Vitkin, 101 College Street, M5G1L7 Toronto, Canada.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 25 July 2020
Citations: 6

Mohammadali Khorasani and Alex Vitkin are senoir coauthors

Funding information: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Grant/Award Number: PJT-156110; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant/Award Number: 410009540

Abstract

A commercially available genomic test, OncotypeDX has emerged as a useful postsurgical treatment guide for early stage breast cancer. Despite widespread clinical adoption, there remain logistical issues with its implementation. Collagenous stromal architecture has been shown to hold prognostic value that may complement OncotypeDX. Polarimetric analysis of breast cancer surgical samples allows for the quantification of collagenous stroma abundance and organization. We examine intratumoural collagen abundance and alignment along the tumor-host interface for 45 human samples of invasive ductal carcinoma categorized as low or higher risk by OncotypeDX. Furthermore, we probe the separatory power of collagen alignment patterns to classify unlabeled samples as low or higher OncotypeDX risk group using a linear discriminant (LD) model. No significant difference in mean collagen abundance was found between the two risk groups. However, collagen alignment along the tumor boundary was found to be significantly lower in higher risk samples. The LD model achieved a 71% total accuracy and 81% sensitivity to higher risk samples. Prognostic information extracted from the stromal morphology has potential to complement OncotypeDX as an easy-to-implement prescreening methodology.image

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no financial or commercial conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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