Sheffield Scientists Lead The Way

The Department of Cytogenetics at Sheffield Children’s Hospital has taken delivery of an Accord image analysis system, the first of its kind to achieve US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for HER2
amplification detection in breast cancer. Accord is one of an exciting new range of tools launched by Image Solutions (UK) Ltd in the fight against aggressive HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Department Clinical Scientist Neil Atkey spent a year evaluating all of the imaging systems on the market before deciding on Accord. “Now we intend to validate the system on a minimum of 100 cases to determine its level of concordance with analyses carried out by a manual operator,” he said.

Accord is a semi-automatic scanning microscope and image analysis system that uses fluorescence in-situ hybridisation (FISH) to show if there are too many copies of the HER2 gene in samples of cancer cells. Roughly 25% of such cells carry the extra genes, which are associated with an increased risk of spread of the disease.

The system being semi-automatic is designed for clinicians that prefer to keep some control themselves. However, the system removes many of the tedious manual techniques, saving both time and expense. The system uses a 3CCD camera to scan and count thousands of cells per minute. It allows customisation of scanning ‘recipes’ plus rapid intuitive switching between automatic and manual modes. Meanwhile a
second workstation allows other users to analyse previous results and generate reports while Accord is still scanning samples. This twin approach will speed up the ability of doctors to decide which patients are HER2-positive and therefore most likely to benefit from treatment with Herceptin.

This is a well-established and effective treatment both before and after surgery for people with HER2-positive breast cancer and has also been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence after initial surgery.