The Laboratory of Pathology at Dordrecht, Netherlands is to collaborate with PreciseDx by studying the performance of PreciseDx’s AI-driven Cancer Risk Stratification platform, confirming its accuracy of staging and role in the decision process.
The laboratory is responsible for the pathology of both the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Dordrecht and the Beatrix Hospital in Gorinchem, both in the Netherlands. PreciseDx is an AI company leveraging the analysis of morphology features from histology slides to provide more precise patient-specific risk information.
In early-stage invasive breast cancer, clinical and pathological features are used to assess prognosis. Of these, grade is known to be subject to considerable inter- and intra-observer variation. This has been confirmed in a recent study from the Netherlands. Designed to augment the work pathologists perform, not replace it, the PreciseDx Breast Test has previously shown a more accurate assessment of prognosis than current clinical features and can address the issue of breast cancer diagnostic misclassification.
The PreciseDx Breast Assay has been shown to function as a standalone prognostic assay capable of accurately stratifying early-stage invasive breast cancer into low risk and high-risk likelihood of recurrence within six years of primary diagnosis. Furthermore, the assay is capable of reclassifying breast cancer histologic grades 2 and 3 into low-risk and high-risk categories.
The collaboration will integrate PreciseDx’s AI-enabled technology into an independent cohort of early-stage breast cancer cases with known six-year clinical outcomes. In an initial rollout, PreciseDx’s technology will review and evaluate 300 digitally scanned hematoxylin and eosin (H and E) images from patients in the Laboratory of Pathology at Dordrecht with early-stage invasive ductal and mixed ductal/lobular breast cancer defined by ER(+), PR+/-, HER2(-) status.
“The collaboration with Dr Westenend at the Laboratory of Pathology will provide the opportunity to evaluate the prognostic performance of the assay with an independent European breast cancer cohort. In addition to the prognostic utility of predicting the likelihood of recurrence, this collaboration will also permit a comparison of the PreciseDx Breast assay with the prognostic performance of other available diagnostic tests in the identification of patients with low-risk and high-risk of disease recurrence. Finally, the collaboration will allow an evaluation of the PreciseDx assay within the context of current pathology workflow within Dr Westenend’s laboratory practice,” said Douglas P Malinowski, PhD, Vice President of Clinical Affairs at PreciseDx.
“At our facility we are always seeking new ways to advance clinical care, so we are thrilled to collaborate with PreciseDx, an organisation with the technology to improve processes for pathologists and oncologists and change outcomes for patients,” said Pieter J Westenend, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator and practicing pathologist at the Laboratory of Pathology at Dordrecht. “PreciseDx is a unique and ideal partner that stands out in its ease of integration. The PreciseDx report turn-around time takes only a few days, proving to be an excellent and encouraging tool for prognostic analysis.”
