New Pathology Guideline Advances Accuracy in Breast Cancer Testing

The College of American Pathologists (CAP) today published the first-ever evidence-based clinical practice guideline to help laboratories use quantitative image analysis (QIA) in HER2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) testing for breast cancer. The guideline was published in an early online edition of the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. QIA is the computer algorithm-assisted detection of specific features in an image following the digitalization of a glass slide image. Advancements in genomics, computing, and imaging technology are spurring new opportunities to use QIA for diagnostic testing. And while it has been shown to improve consistency and accuracy of interpretation compared to manual scoring by pathologists, the lack of a clinical guideline has been a barrier to wider QIA adoption.