Classification and Mutation Prediction from Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Histopathology Images using Deep Learning

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Abstract

Abstract Visual analysis of histopathology slides of lung cell tissues is one of the main methods used by pathologists to assess the stage, types and sub-types of lung cancers. Adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are two most prevalent sub-types of lung cancer, but their distinction can be challenging and time-consuming even for the expert eye. In this study, we trained a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) model (inception v3) on histopathology images obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to accurately classify whole-slide pathology images into adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma or normal lung tissue. Our method slightly outperforms a human pathologist, achieving better sensitivity and specificity, with ∼0.97 average Area Under the Curve (AUC) on a held-out population of whole-slide scans. Furthermore, we trained the neural network to predict the ten most commonly mutated genes in lung adenocarcinoma. We found that six of these genes – STK11, EGFR, FAT1, SETBP1, KRAS and TP53 – can be predicted from pathology images with an accuracy ranging from 0.733 to 0.856, as measured by the AUC on the held-out population. These findings suggest that deep learning models can offer both specialists and patients a fast, accurate and inexpensive detection of cancer types or gene mutations, and thus have a significant impact on cancer treatment.

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