This type of cancer caused 1.9 million diagnosed cases worldwide in 2020.
A new artificial intelligence (AI) test to assess the risk of bowel cancer recurrence could help patients avoid chemotherapy, a study led by researchers at the University of Leeds has found.
The published findings were: Journal of Clinical Oncology It may help doctors decide whether patients need chemotherapy after surgery for colorectal cancer.
Colorectal cancer, which can occur anywhere in the large intestine, is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with 1.9 million cases diagnosed in 2020.
In the UK alone, bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer, affecting over 250,000 people.
The researchers aimed to determine whether the number of CD3 cells in a tumour could be used to predict the risk of the tumour recurring after surgery.
Previous studies have shown that intestinal or rectal tumors with higher numbers of CD3 immune cells, which attack cancer and help the body fight the disease, are less likely to recur after being removed by surgery.
The researchers examined tissue from 868 stage 2 and stage 3 intestinal tumors and measured the number of CD3 cells in them.
The test used an AI algorithm to accurately assess and calculate a CD3 score based on the number of CD3 cells in different areas of the tumor.
The research team found that tumours with a high risk CD3 score were three times more likely to recur five years after surgery than tumours with a low risk CD3 score.
What’s more, after patients received chemotherapy, the recurrence rate decreased in both groups, but patients with lower immune cell counts were most likely to benefit from chemotherapy.
Lead author Dr Christopher Williams, Cancer Research UK clinical trial investigator at the University of Leeds Medical School, said: “Current methods for determining which patients with early-stage bowel cancer need chemotherapy and which do not are unreliable.
“This test is fast, accurate and simple, and we hope it will make discussions about chemotherapy after surgery easier for patients and their doctors.”
