Tumor budding refers to the presence of individual or small clusters of tumor cells (tumor buds) at the invasive front of carcinomas. Particularly in the setting of colorectal carcinoma, tumor budding has been pointed out as a strong and reproducible prognostic factor, dividing patients into risk categories with a different perspective than TNM staging, see [1].
This protocol can be used to quantify tumor budding in PCK stained colorectal sections. The APP detects tumor buds in a manually marked invasive front and assigns hot spots to the ten most affected areas.