Cited by 660AI in cancer detectionRadiomics and Machine Learning in Medical ImagingCancer Genomics and Diagnostics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 80 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 2 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Pan-cancer integrative histology-genomic analysis via multimodal deep learning

Open access

Abstract

The rapidly emerging field of computational pathology has demonstrated promise in developing objective prognostic models from histology images. However, most prognostic models are either based on histology or genomics alone and do not address how these data sources can be integrated to develop joint image-omic prognostic models. Additionally, identifying explainable morphological and molecular descriptors from these models that govern such prognosis is of interest. We use multimodal deep learning to jointly examine pathology whole-slide images and molecular profile data from 14 cancer types. Our weakly supervised, multimodal deep-learning algorithm is able to fuse these heterogeneous modalities to predict outcomes and discover prognostic features that correlate with poor and favorable outcomes. We present all analyses for morphological and molecular correlates of patient prognosis across the 14 cancer types at both a disease and a patient level in an interactive open-access database to allow for further exploration, biomarker discovery, and feature assessment.

Overview

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TL;DR

The authors built a weakly supervised multimodal deep learning model that combines pathology whole-slide images with molecular profiles to predict cancer survival across 14 TCGA cancer types. They report improved risk stratification over unimodal models for most cancers and provide an interactive platform for exploring image and molecular explanations.

Key findings

  • Multimodal fusion achieved an overall cross-validated c-index of 0.645, compared with 0.585 for image-only AMIL and 0.607 for molecular-only SNN; Survival AUC was 0.662 for multimodal, versus 0.616 for SNN and 0.598 for AMIL.
  • The multimodal model had the highest c-index in 12 of 14 cancer types, with statistically significant binary risk stratification in 10 of 14. KIRP showed the largest gain, reaching a c-index of 0.816 versus 0.539 for AMIL and 0.779 for SNN.
  • Whole-slide images contributed an average of 16.8% of input attributions across cancers, but this varied widely, including 55.1% for UCEC, 32.4% for PAAD, and 5.8% for LUSC.
  • Interpretability analyses linked low-risk attention regions to greater immune-cell presence and high-risk regions to tumor presence, higher grade, or invasion; lymphocyte fractions differed significantly in 8 of 14 cancers and tumor-cell fractions in 6 of 14. TIL presence was significantly higher in predicted low-risk patients for 9 of 14 cancers.

Methods

  • The study used 6,592 diagnostic H&E whole-slide images from 5,720 patients across 14 TCGA cancer types, with paired mutation, copy-number, and RNA-Seq data where available.
  • The multimodal model combined an attention-based multiple-instance-learning branch for images, a self-normalizing network for molecular features, and a Kronecker-product fusion layer. Training used patient-level five-fold cross-validation with 80/20 train-test splits, and performance was assessed with c-index, Survival AUC, Kaplan-Meier curves, and logrank tests.
  • Interpretability used attention heatmaps for image regions and Integrated Gradients for molecular features, with HoVerNet-based cell segmentation to quantify cell types and TILs in high-attention regions. Results were made available through the PORPOISE platform.

Limitations

  • The paper states that the approach can identify “what” and “where” but not always “why,” so discovered features require further human quantification and biological interpretation.
  • The paper notes that attention sometimes shifted away from tumor regions toward stroma or normal tissue, and speculates this may reflect training dynamics favoring the simpler modality; molecular data are bulk and lack spatial resolution.
  • Evident from the text: the study is retrospective and TCGA-based, with no independent external validation; SKCM includes metastatic cases that may optimistically bias performance, and data-alignment criteria were relaxed for SKCM and UCEC due to missingness.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.ccell.2022.07.004

Cites

80 of 80 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Metadata

Authors
Chen, R. J., Lu, M. Y., Williamson, D. F. K., Chen, T. Y., Lipkova, J., Noor, Z., Shaban, M., Shady, M., Williams, M., Joo, B., & Mahmood, F.
Affiliations
  • Broad Institute (US)
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Mahmood, Faisal
Venue
Cancer Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2022-08
Volume
40
Issue
8
Pages
865-878.e6
ISSN
1535-6108 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4291021272
Cited by
660
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 219 · 2025: 215 · 2024: 133 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 9
FWCI
36.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cancer Cell (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. National Library of Medicine (T15LM007092)
  • National Science Foundation
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Google
  • National Human Genome Research Institute
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35GM138216)
  • National Cancer Institute (T32CA251062)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in cancer detection
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Radiomics and Machine Learning in Medical Imaging
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
Keywords
pan-cancer, multimodal deep learning, whole slide images, prognostic model, weakly supervised learning, morphological features, molecular profiles, explainable features, biomarker discovery, interactive database
MeSH terms
Deep Learning, Algorithms, Humans, Neoplasms, Prognosis, Genomics

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