A study led by researchers at the University of Leeds has revealed that a new artificial intelligence (AI) test to determine the risk of recurring bowel cancers could help patients avoid chemotherapy.
The findings published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Production could help doctors when deciding whether a patient needs chemotherapy following bowel cancer surgery.
Found anywhere in the large bowel, bowel cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, 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.
Researchers aimed to establish whether the number of CD3 cells within tumours could be used to predict the risk of a tumour coming back after surgery.
In previous studies, bowel and rectal tumours with higher numbers of CD3 immune cells, which attack the cancer and help the body tackle the disease, have been shown to be less likely to recur following removal by surgery.
Researchers examined tissue from 868 stage 2 and stage 3 bowel tumours to determine the numbers of CD3 cells within them.
Using an AI algorithm, the test accurately assessed and calculated a CD3 score based on the number of CD3 cells in different areas of the tumour.
The team found that tumours with a high-risk CD3 score were three times more likely to recur five years after surgery than those with a low-risk CD3 score.
In addition, recurrence rates were reduced in both groups after patients received chemotherapy. However, patients with lower numbers of immune cells were the most likely to benefit from chemotherapy.
Lead author Dr Christopher Williams, Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials research fellow in Leeds’ School of Medicine, commented: “Current methods for deciding 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 conversations about chemotherapy after surgery much more straightforward for patients and their doctors.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1053004