Deep-Learning-Based Approach in Cancer-Region Assessment from HER2-SISH Breast Histopathology Whole Slide Images

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is widely regarded as the gold standard for evaluating human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status in breast cancer; however, it poses challenges such as the need for specialized training and issues related to signal degradation from dye quenching. Silver-enhanced in situ hybridization (SISH) serves as an automated alternative, employing permanent staining suitable for bright-field microscopy. Determining HER2 status involves distinguishing between “Amplified” and “Non-Amplified” regions by assessing HER2 and centromere 17 (CEN17) signals in SISH-stained slides. This study is the first to leverage deep learning for classifying Normal, Amplified, and Non-Amplified regions within HER2-SISH whole slide images (WSIs), which are notably more complex to analyze compared to hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained slides. Our proposed approach consists of a two-stage process: first, we evaluate deep-learning models on annotated image regions, and then we apply the most effective model to WSIs for regional identification and localization. Subsequently, pseudo-color maps representing each class are overlaid, and the WSIs are reconstructed with these mapped regions. Using a private dataset of HER2-SISH breast cancer slides digitized at 40× magnification, we achieved a patch-level classification accuracy of 99.9% and a generalization accuracy of 78.8% by applying transfer learning with a Vision Transformer (ViT) model. The robustness of the model was further evaluated through k-fold cross-validation, yielding an average performance accuracy of 98%, with metrics reported alongside 95% confidence intervals to ensure statistical reliability. This method shows significant promise for clinical applications, particularly in assessing HER2 expression status in HER2-SISH histopathology images. It provides an automated solution that can aid pathologists in efficiently identifying HER2-amplified regions, thus enhancing diagnostic outcomes for breast cancer treatment.