Development of a Novel Tool for the Retrieval and Analysis of Hormone Receptor Expression Characteristics in Metastatic Breast Cancer via Data Mining on Pathology Reports

Abstract Background Information about the expression status of hormone receptors such as estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and Her-2 is crucial in the management and prognosis of breast cancer. Therefore, the retrieval and analysis of hormone receptor expression characteristics in metastatic breast cancer may be valuable in breast cancer study. Methods Herein, we report a text mining tool based on word/phrase matching that retrieves hormone receptor expression data of regional or distant metastatic breast cancer from pathology reports. It was tested on pathology reports at the China Medical University Hospital from 2013 to 2018. Results The tool showed specificities of 91.6% and 63.3% for the detection of regional lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis, respectively. Sensitivity in immunohistochemical study result extraction in these cases was 98.6% for distant metastasis and 78.3% for regional lymph node metastasis. Statistical analysis on these retrieved data showed significant differences in PR and Her-2 expression between regional and metastatic breast cancer, which is compatible with previous studies. Conclusion In conclusion, our study shows that metastatic breast cancer hormone receptor expression characteristics can be retrieved by text mining. Algorithm designed in this study may be useful in future studies about text mining in pathology reports.