An ecological measure of immune-cancer colocalization as a prognostic factor for breast cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Abundance of immune cells has been shown to have prognostic and predictive significance in many tumor types. Beyond abundance, the spatial organization of immune cells in relation to cancer cells may also have significant functional and clinical implications. However there is a lack of systematic methods to quantify spatial associations between immune and cancer cells.

Methods

We applied ecological measures of species interactions to digital pathology images for investigating the spatial associations of immune and cancer cells in breast cancer. We used the Morisita-Horn similarity index, an ecological measure of community structure and predator-prey interactions, to quantify the extent to which cancer cells and immune cells colocalize in whole-tumor histology se

SUBMITTER: Maley CC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4579663 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature