Dr Roberto Salgado speaks to ecancer about the phase III APHINITY trial.

The trial compares manual, digital, and AI-based assessment of stromal tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) in early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer.

Dr Salgado says that the results show that while manual sTIL scoring remains highly reproducible, AI-based quantification provides comparable and in some settings enhanced prognostic power for invasive disease-free survival and overall survival.

Importantly, both manual and AI sTIL assessments identified patients who derived significant benefit from adjuvant pertuzumab, with AI methods expanding the pool of node-positive patients likely to benefit.

Dr Salgado highlights how integrating AI-driven immune quantification with traditional pathology can improve risk stratification and help further personalise HER2-targeted therapy in early breast cancer.