Multimodal AI and tumour microenvironment integration predicts metastasis in cutaneous melanoma
- Author(s)
- Andrew, TW; Combalia, M; Hernandez, C; Grant, S; Paragh, G; Puig, S; Mc Arthur, G; Richardson, G; Sloan, P; Shalhout, SZ; Plummer, R; Lovat, PE;
- Journal Title
- Nature Communications
- Publication Type
- Research article
- Abstract
- Accurate prognostication is essential to guide clinical management in localised cutaneous melanoma (CM), the form of skin cancer with the highest mortality. While the tumour microenvironment (TME) plays a key role in disease progression, current staging systems rely on limited tumour features and exclude key clinicopathological prognostic features. Here we show that MelanoMAP, a multimodal AI model integrating TME-derived digital biomarkers and clinicopathological features from over 3,500 histology slides, improves prognostication of localised CM. MelanoMAP achieved a C-index of 0.82, a 24% improvement over traditional AJCC staging (0.66) and consistently outperformed clinicopathological-only models across six international patient cohorts. SHAP analysis identified TME-derived digital biomarkers, alongside traditional clinicopathological factors including age, mitotic count, and Breslow depth, were critical determinants of metastatic risk. MelanoMAP establishes a potential foundation for precision oncology in CM, demonstrating how AI-driven digital biomarkers can advance personalised prognostication and inform clinical-decision making.
- Keywords
- Humans; *Melanoma/pathology/diagnosis/metabolism; *Tumor Microenvironment; *Skin Neoplasms/pathology/diagnosis/metabolism; Prognosis; Female; Male; Biomarkers, Tumor/metabolism; Middle Aged; Melanoma, Cutaneous Malignant; Neoplasm Metastasis; *Artificial Intelligence; Aged; Neoplasm Staging; Adult
- Department(s)
- Medical Oncology; Laboratory Research
- Publisher's Version
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65051-0
- Open Access at Publisher's Site
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65051-0- Terms of Use/Rights Notice
- Refer to copyright notice on published article.
Creation Date: 2025-12-04 05:57:59
Last Modified: 2025-12-04 05:59:00