In this issue

Excerpt

In an emerging digital age pathology is one of the perfect medical specialties to integrate advanced digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) into research and clinical practice. AI seems to be particularly helpful and superior to the human eye for assessing parameters which require counting of a larger number of cells for semiquantitative analysis. In addition, digital image analysis by advanced technology may be able to discriminate different types of cells equivalent or superior to an experienced investigator. A study by Abe et al. (https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s00428-019-02730-6; illustrated on the cover page) analyzed tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), which has recently emerged as a putative novel biomarker for, particularly, triple negative breast carcinoma, in HER2 positive breast carcinoma using digital image analysis on core needle biopsies. They correlated the findings with response to neoadjuvant anti-HER2 therapy and found that digital image analysis not only enables to determine the TIL level as the number of TILs per unit area but also demonstrates the TIL level derived from this digital method as independent predictor of pathological complete response (pCR). …