AUTHOR=Han Ting , Zhuo Meng , Song Ziyu , Chen Peilin , Chen Shiting , Zhang Wei , Zhou Yuanyuan , Li Hong , Zhang Dadong , Lin Xiaolin , Liu Zebing , Xiao Xiuying 

TITLE=Automated interpretation of PD-L1 CPS based on multi-AI models integration strategy in gastric cancer

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2025.1614099

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2025.1614099

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=IntroductionProgrammed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) evaluation plays a pivotal role in predicting immunotherapy efficacy for gastric cancer. However, manual CPS assessment suffers from significant inter-observer variability among pathologists, leading to clinical inconsistencies. To address this limitation, we developed a deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) system that automates PD-L1 CPS quantification for patients with gastric cancer (GC) using whole slide images (WSIs).MethodsWe developed a deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) system that automates PD-L1 CPS quantification for patients with gastric cancer (GC) using whole slide images (WSIs). Our pipeline firstly employs a dual-network architecture for tumor region detection: MobileNet for patch-level classification and U-Net for pixel-level segmentation. Followed by a YOLO-based cell detection model to compute PD-L1 expression on different cells for CPS calculation. A total of 308 GC WSIs were included, including 210 in the internal cohort and 98 in the external cohort. Within the internal cohort, 100 WSIs were utilized for the model development, while the remaining 110 WSIs served as an internal testing set for comparative analysis between AI-derived CPS values and pathologist-derived reference standards.ResultsThe AI-derived CPS demonstrated strong concordance with expert pathologists’ consensus in internal cohort (Cohen’s kappa = 0.782). Furthermore, the AI-based CPS prediction pipeline was evaluated for its performance in the external cohort, and showed robust performance (Cohen’s kappa = 0.737).DiscussionOur system provides a standardized decision-support tool for immunotherapy stratification in GC management, demonstrating potential to improve CPS assessment reproducibility.