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@ARTICLE{Reitsam:310011,
author = {N. G. Reitsam and X. Jiang and J. Liang and B. Grosser and
V. Grozdanov and C. M. Loeffler and M. Gustav and T. Lenz
and H. S. Muti and Z. I. Carrero and N. P. West and P.
Quirke and S. Foersch and M. Jesinghaus and W. Müller and
T. Yuan$^*$ and M. Hoffmeister$^*$ and H. Brenner$^*$ and J.
Jonnagaddala and N. J. Hawkins and R. L. Ward and H. I.
Grabsch and B. Märkl and J. N. Kather},
title = {{D}eep learning-based ${H}\&{E}-derived$ risk scores in
colorectal cancer: associations with tumour morphology,
biology, and predicted drug response.},
journal = {The journal of pathology},
volume = {nn},
issn = {0368-3494},
address = {Bognor Regis [u.a.]},
publisher = {Wiley},
reportid = {DKFZ-2026-00424},
pages = {nn},
year = {2026},
note = {epub},
abstract = {Over recent years, several deep learning (DL) models have
been presented to predict colorectal cancer (CRC) patient
survival directly from haematoxylin and eosin
$(H\&E)-stained$ routine whole-slide images (WSIs). Unlike
traditional studies that rely on manually defined
histopathological features, weakly supervised DL allows
training directly on clinical endpoints without prior
specification of the model's focus. This offers a unique
opportunity to study the tissue morphology underlying these
predictions, improving our understanding of disease biology.
Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of the
clinicopathological features, tumour morphology and biology,
as well as gene expression-based predicted drug response of
over 4,000 CRC patients derived from four different
international cohorts with available $H\&E-inferred$
DL-based risk scores (low- versus high-risk as well as
absolute risk scores). The results from our study suggest
that conventional clinicopathological risk factors, such as
grade of differentiation, presence of lymph node metastasis,
tumour budding, and percentage of tumour necrosis, are
positively associated with DL-based risk scores. Moreover,
CRCs with direct tumour-adipocyte interactions are enriched
in the DL-based high-risk group. Through detailed
morphologic review, we provide comprehensive evidence that
direct tumour-adipocyte interaction, a high degree of tumour
budding, and poorly differentiated morphology are linked to
high DL-based risk scores. Transcriptomic and genetic
subgroups show only limited association with $H\&E-derived$
DL-based risk scores. Moreover, we present data suggesting
that DL-based low- versus high-risk CRCs may be
characterised by differential drug sensitivity. Our study
highlights that DL-based risk scores derived from $H\&E$
WSIs not only align with established clinicopathological
features but also highlight morphological features, such as
tumour-adipocyte interaction, that are not routinely
captured by established clinicopathological scoring systems.
Moreover, DL-based risk groups may be associated with a
differential treatment response, underlining their potential
to guide patient stratification in routine clinical
practice. © 2026 The Author(s). The Journal of Pathology
published by John Wiley $\&$ Sons Ltd on behalf of The
Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.},
keywords = {biomarker (Other) / colorectal cancer (Other) /
computational pathology (Other) / deep learning (Other) /
drug response (Other) / gene expression (Other) /
histopathology (Other) / pathology (Other) / whole‐slide
image (Other)},
cin = {C070 / M320},
ddc = {610},
cid = {I:(DE-He78)C070-20160331 / I:(DE-He78)M320-20160331},
pnm = {313 - Krebsrisikofaktoren und Prävention (POF4-313)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-313},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {pmid:41716034},
doi = {10.1002/path.70039},
url = {https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/310011},
}