A tool developed by Brazilian and Polish researchers may contribute to this process. Their research is published in the journal Cell Genomics.

The machine-learning model can predict the aggressiveness of certain tumors by identifying specific proteins. It generates a stemness index ranging from zero to one, with zero indicating low aggressiveness and one indicating high aggressiveness. As the index increases, the cancer tends to become more aggressive and resistant to drugs and more likely to recur.

The degree of stemness indicates how closely tumor cells resemble pluripotent stem cells, which can transform into almost any type of cell in the human body. As the disease progresses, malignant cells become less and less similar to the tissue from which they originated. These cells self-renew and exhibit an undifferentiated phenotype.