The value of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in differentiating triple-negative breast cancer from other subtypes

Abstract

Abstract Background Breast cancer is a broad spectrum disease, including tumors showing different clinical, pathologic, molecular, and imaging features. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has an extra aggressive clinical course and poor prognosis being considered a diagnostic challenge to breast radiologists, yet it presented quite a lot of predictors on DCE-MRI; these could be valuable in identifying TNBC from other breast cancer subtypes. In this study, we aimed at assessing the DCE-MRI features of triple-negative breast cancer in comparison to other subtypes of breast cancer. Results There was a significant difference between both groups regarding the internal enhancement pattern of mass lesions (P value 0.001), as well as intratumoral bright signal intensity on T2-weighted images (P value < 0.001). However, most of the breast cancer subtypes in this study showed malignant pattern kinetic curves type II and III showing no significant difference (P value 0.673). Conclusion TNBC presented several features with significant differences from other breast cancer molecular subtypes on DCE-MRI including the shape of the lesion and pattern of enhancement as well as high T2 signal intensity, thus improving the diagnosis of TNBC.

Keywords

• Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI
• Triple-negative breast cancer