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Candido dos Reis FJ, Lynn S, Ali HR, Eccles D, Hanby A, Provenzano E, Caldas C, Howat WJ, McDuffus LA, Liu B, Daley F, Coulson P, Vyas RJ, Harris LM, Owens JM, Carton AF, McQuillan JP, Paterson AM, Hirji Z, Christie SK, Holmes AR, Schmidt MK, Garcia-Closas M, Easton DF, Bolla MK, Wang Q, Benitez J, Milne RL, Mannermaa A, Couch F, Devilee P, Tollenaar RA, Seynaeve C, Cox A, Cross SS, Blows FM, Sanders J, de Groot R, Figueroa J, Sherman M, Hooning M, Brenner H, Holleczek B, Stegmaier C, Lintott C, Pharoah PD. Crowdsourcing the General Public for Large Scale Molecular Pathology Studies in Cancer. EBioMedicine 2015; 2:681-9. [PMID: 26288840 PMCID: PMC4534635 DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2015.05.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2015] [Revised: 05/07/2015] [Accepted: 05/08/2015] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Citizen science, scientific research conducted by non-specialists, has the potential to facilitate biomedical research using available large-scale data, however validating the results is challenging. The Cell Slider is a citizen science project that intends to share images from tumors with the general public, enabling them to score tumor markers independently through an internet-based interface. METHODS From October 2012 to June 2014, 98,293 Citizen Scientists accessed the Cell Slider web page and scored 180,172 sub-images derived from images of 12,326 tissue microarray cores labeled for estrogen receptor (ER). We evaluated the accuracy of Citizen Scientist's ER classification, and the association between ER status and prognosis by comparing their test performance against trained pathologists. FINDINGS The area under ROC curve was 0.95 (95% CI 0.94 to 0.96) for cancer cell identification and 0.97 (95% CI 0.96 to 0.97) for ER status. ER positive tumors scored by Citizen Scientists were associated with survival in a similar way to that scored by trained pathologists. Survival probability at 15 years were 0.78 (95% CI 0.76 to 0.80) for ER-positive and 0.72 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.77) for ER-negative tumors based on Citizen Scientists classification. Based on pathologist classification, survival probability was 0.79 (95% CI 0.77 to 0.81) for ER-positive and 0.71 (95% CI 0.67 to 0.74) for ER-negative tumors. The hazard ratio for death was 0.26 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.37) at diagnosis and became greater than one after 6.5 years of follow-up for ER scored by Citizen Scientists, and 0.24 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.33) at diagnosis increasing thereafter to one after 6.7 (95% CI 4.1 to 10.9) years of follow-up for ER scored by pathologists. INTERPRETATION Crowdsourcing of the general public to classify cancer pathology data for research is viable, engages the public and provides accurate ER data. Crowdsourced classification of research data may offer a valid solution to problems of throughput requiring human input.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francisco J. Candido dos Reis
- Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
| | - Stuart Lynn
- Department of Physics (Astrophysics), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - H. Raza Ali
- Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | | | | | | | - Carlos Caldas
- Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | | | | | - Bin Liu
- Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Marjanka K. Schmidt
- Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | | | - Douglas F. Easton
- Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Manjeet K. Bolla
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Qin Wang
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Javier Benitez
- Human Genotyping (CEGEN) Unit, Human Cancer Genetics Program, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain
- Biomedical Network on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), Madrid, Spain
| | - Roger L. Milne
- Cancer Epidemiology Centre, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia
| | - Arto Mannermaa
- Institute of Clinical Medicine, Pathology and Forensic Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
| | - Fergus Couch
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
| | - Peter Devilee
- Department of Human Genetics & Department of Pathology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | | | - Caroline Seynaeve
- Department of Medical Oncology, Family Cancer Clinic, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Angela Cox
- Sheffield Cancer Research, Department of Oncology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Simon S. Cross
- Academic Unit of Pathology, Department of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Fiona M. Blows
- Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Joyce Sanders
- Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Renate de Groot
- Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | | | | | - Maartje Hooning
- Department of Medical Oncology, Family Cancer Clinic, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Hermann Brenner
- Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
- Division of Preventive Oncology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
| | | | | | - Chris Lintott
- Department of Physics (Astrophysics), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Paul D.P. Pharoah
- Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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