Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40589103›Full record

ArticleBrain pathology (Zurich, Switzerland)2026

Pediatric brain tumor classification using digital pathology and deep learning: Evaluation of SOTA methods on a multi-center Swedish cohort.

Iulian Emil Tampu, Per Nyman, Christoforos Spyretos, Ida Blystad, Alia Shamikh, Gabriela Prochazka, Teresita Díaz de Ståhl, Johanna Sandgren, Peter Lundberg, Neda Haj-Hosseini

Abstract readMulticenter Study
In one paragraph

Article in Brain pathology (Zurich, Switzerland), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors.

Iulian Emil TampuDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7582-1706
Per NymanCenter for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Christoforos SpyretosDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Ida BlystadCenter for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Alia ShamikhDepartment of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden.
Gabriela ProchazkaDepartment of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden.
Teresita Díaz de StåhlDepartment of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden.
Johanna SandgrenDepartment of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden.
Peter LundbergCenter for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Neda Haj-HosseiniDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.

Funding

ALF Grants, Region Östergötland 974566Joanna Cocozza's Foundation for Children's Medical ResearchLinköping University's Cancer Strength AreaSwedish Childhood Cancer Fund MT2021-0011Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund MT2022-0013Vinnova via Medtech4Health and Analytic Imaging Diagnostics Arena 2222
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Brain tumors are the most common solid tumors in children and young adults, but the scarcity of large histopathology datasets has limited the application of computational pathology in this group. This study implements two weakly supervised multiple-instance learning (MIL) approaches on patch features obtained from state-of-the-art histology-specific foundation models to classify pediatric brain tumors in hematoxylin and eosin whole slide images (WSIs) from a multi-center Swedish cohort. WSIs from 540 subjects (age 8.5 ± 4.9 years) diagnosed with brain tumors were gathered from the six Swedish university hospitals. Instance (patch)-level features were obtained from WSIs using three pre-trained feature extractors: ResNet50, UNI, and CONCH. Instances were aggregated using attention-based MIL (ABMIL) or clustering-constrained attention MIL (CLAM) for patient-level classification. Models were evaluated on three classification tasks based on the hierarchical classification of pediatric brain tumors: tumor category, family, and type. Model generalization was assessed by training on data from two of the centers and testing on data from four other centers. Model interpretability was evaluated through attention mapping. The highest classification performance was achieved using UNI features and ABMIL aggregation, with Matthew's correlation coefficient of 0.76 ± 0.04, 0.63 ± 0.04, and 0.60 ± 0.05 for tumor category, family, and type classification, respectively. When evaluating generalization, models utilizing UNI and CONCH features outperformed those using ResNet50. However, the drop in performance from the in-site to out-of-site testing was similar across feature extractors. These results show the potential of state-of-the-art computational pathology methods in diagnosing pediatric brain tumors at different hierarchical levels with fair generalizability on a multi-center national dataset.

Indexed as

Brain NeoplasmsDeep LearningAdolescentChildChild, PreschoolCohort StudiesFemaleHumansMaleSwedendeep learningdigital pathologyfoundation modelspediatric brain tumors

Identifiers

PMID40589103
PMCPMC12695686

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.