World Tumor Registry Launches Breast Cancer Registry

"With breast cancer affecting more lives than any other cancer in the U.S. and around the world, the urgency for diagnostic accuracy has never been higher," said Dr. Yuri Nikiforov, Professor of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and WTR Founder and President. "The most effective treatment cannot be offered without a correct and timely diagnosis. That is why we have focused our efforts on breast cancer - to provide every doctor, regardless of their geographic location, access to the digital tools of modern cancer diagnostics."

Under the leadership of Chairperson Dr. Edi Brogi, Director of Breast Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Breast Editorial Board, consisting of expert breast pathologists from all geographic regions of the world, has begun the critical work of collecting, reviewing, and annotating common and rare tumor cases, which are then published on the WTR website. Following the WTR mission, the Breast Cancer Registry platform utilizes a unique educational interface, where users can view high-quality whole slide images and learn the diagnostic microscopic features, together with clinical, immunohistochemical, and molecular information on tumors contributed from around the world.

"I am thrilled to announce that the Breast Cancer Registry is now live. The first 100 fully annotated breast tumor cases are already available to view and study, and our goal is to have 500 cases in the Registry by the end of the year, with examples of essentially every breast tumor type and subtype," said Dr. Brogi. She continued, "I invite pathologists and pathology trainees from all over the world to contribute common and rare cases to this open-access, unique, worldwide educational resource. Working together, we will directly improve cancer diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes globally."

Importantly, additional information that is collected and displayed for most cases includes information on familial disease (eg., BRCA1), risk factors (eg., hormonal therapy), biomarker profile (ER/PR/HER2), and neoadjuvant therapy. "In some cases, users can view digital slides of both the core biopsy and its companion excision from the same patient," noted Dr. Carlos Munoz-Zuluaga, a breast pathology fellow at MSKCC, who serves as Project Administrator for Breast Cancer Registry. "Seeing these images side by side offers a unique learning opportunity by correlating limited biopsy material with the complete tumor, illustrating why certain cancers are challenging to diagnose in biopsies."

The launch of Breast Cancer Registry marks a new, accelerated phase of WTR expansion, which includes deployment of two more projects, the Lung Cancer Registry and the Skin and Melanoma Tumor Registry, later in 2026, followed by all organ/site registries by the end of 2028.

This project was made possible through the grant support from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation's Regional Autonomous Patient Safety initiative and The Fisher Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

About the World Tumor Registry