Lymphoid infiltration at tumor margins is a key prognostic marker in solid tumors, playing a crucial role in guiding immunotherapy decisions. Current assessment methods, heavily reliant on immunohistochemistry (IHC), face challenges in tumor margin delineation and are affected by tissue preservation conditions. In contrast, we propose a Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) staining-based approach, underpinned by an advanced lymphocyte segmentation model trained on a public dataset for the precise detection of CD3+ and CD20+ lymphocytes. In our colorectal cancer study, we demonstrate that our H&E-based method offers a compelling alternative to traditional IHC, achieving comparable results in many cases. Our method's validity is further explored through a Turing test, involving blinded assessments by a pathologist of anonymized curves from H&E and IHC slides. This approach invites the medical community to consider Turing tests as a standard for evaluating medical applications involving expert human evaluation, thereby opening new avenues for enhancing cancer management and immunotherapy planning.

翻译：肿瘤边缘淋巴浸润是实体瘤的关键预后标志物，在指导免疫治疗决策中发挥着至关重要的作用。当前的评估方法严重依赖免疫组织化学（IHC），在肿瘤边缘界定方面面临挑战，并受组织保存条件的影响。相比之下，我们提出了一种基于苏木精-伊红（H&E）染色的方法，该方法由一个在公共数据集上训练的先进淋巴细胞分割模型支持，用于精确检测CD3+和CD20+淋巴细胞。在我们的结直肠癌研究中，我们证明了基于H&E的方法为传统的IHC提供了一种引人注目的替代方案，在许多情况下取得了可比较的结果。我们通过一项图灵测试进一步探讨了该方法的有效性，该测试涉及病理学家对来自H&E和IHC切片的匿名化曲线进行盲法评估。这种方法邀请医学界考虑将图灵测试作为评估涉及专家人工评估的医学应用的标准，从而为改善癌症管理和免疫治疗规划开辟了新途径。