Topological Tumor Graphs

Topological Tumor Graphs (TTG) is a software tool to analyze the spatial interactions between stromal, immune, and cancer cells in melanoma tumor samples. TTG is a graph-based algorithm that computes the spatial relationships between different cell types in histological images.

The researchers first used another computational pathology pipeline called CRImage to classify cells in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained melanoma specimens into stromal, immune, or cancer cells. The proportions of these cell types were validated using various independent measures.

TTG was then applied to the classified cell data to identify two key stromal features: stromal clustering and stromal barrier. These features represented the melanoma stromal microenvironment and were associated with reduced intratumoral lymphocyte distribution and poor overall survival, independent of other prognostic factors.