The Breast Pathology Research Group, led by Professor Sarah Pinder, is studying the heterogeneous nature of breast cancer at the morphological, protein and genomic level, focussing on developing improved systems for classification of breast cancer, particularly its precursors such as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The group has a particular interest in methods for more accurately categorising, and therefore treating, patients with such lesions, the behaviour of which is very difficult to predict.

The breast pathology research group is undertaking an extensive review of large numbers of precancerous lesions from the King’s Health Partners Cancer Biobank and also cases of DCIS from the national Sloane Project of DCIS. Much of this work is in collaboration with Professor E Sawyer (PRECISION); funded by CRUK and the Dutch Cancer Society. A substantial panel of markers have been examined using a wide variety of techniques. The group aims to develop an improved predictive classification system of clinical relevance for patients with DCIS.

In addition to participating as one of the review pathologists for the Low Risk DCIS Trial (LORIS), and acting as Lead Pathologist for a number of other national clinical trials (e.g. SMALL, Mammo-50, NOSTRA, OPTIMA), Professor Pinder researches the value of digital pathology and image analysis in breast pathology, along with artificial intelligence, the latter in particular in collaboration with Dr Anita Grigoriadis.