A novel diagnostic tool for detecting cancer

A team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School has developed a new tool that promises to improve the way pathologists see and evaluate a tumor by providing detailed clues about cancer. The tool, called Orion, combines histologic with molecular information and offers deeper insight into a tumor’s type, behavior, and likely response to treatment.

Orion consists of a powerful digital imaging platform that integrates information gained through traditional histology with details revealed by molecular imaging on a tumor sample.

The researchers used Orion on tumor samples from 74 patients with colorectal cancer organized into two groups. They found that the information provided by the tool allowed them to identify a biomarker of outcome or a specific combination of features that predicted which colorectal cancers were likely to progress and which were not.

In the context of a tumor, a biomarker often factors in how many and what types of immune cells and other cells are present in different parts of a sample. In this case, Orion identified a biomarker based on the presence of T cells marked with the proteins CD4 or CD45 and tumor cells that contained the proteins PD-L1 or α-SMA. The team showed that this and other Orion-based biomarkers performed as well as or better than an established clinical test called Immunoscore, which is based on CD8 and CD3 T cells and is used by oncologists to assess colorectal cancers.

Reference: Multi-modal digital pathology for colorectal cancer diagnosis by high-plex immunofluorescence imaging and traditional histology of the same tissue section, Nature Cancer, DOI 10.1038/s43018-023-00576-1