PLoS ONE (Jan 2015)

Multi-site clinical evaluation of DW-MRI as a treatment response metric for breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

  • Craig J Galbán,
  • Bing Ma,
  • Dariya Malyarenko,
  • Martin D Pickles,
  • Kevin Heist,
  • Norah L Henry,
  • Anne F Schott,
  • Colleen H Neal,
  • Nola M Hylton,
  • Alnawaz Rehemtulla,
  • Timothy D Johnson,
  • Charles R Meyer,
  • Thomas L Chenevert,
  • Lindsay W Turnbull,
  • Brian D Ross

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122151
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 3
p. e0122151

Abstract

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PurposeTo evaluate diffusion weighted MRI (DW-MR) as a response metric for assessment of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in patients with primary breast cancer using prospective multi-center trials which provided MR scans along with clinical outcome information.Materials and methodsA total of 39 patients with locally advanced breast cancer accrued from three different prospective clinical trials underwent DW-MR examination prior to and at 3-7 days (Hull University), 8-11 days (University of Michigan) and 35 days (NeoCOMICE) post-treatment initiation. Thirteen patients, 12 of which participated in treatment response study, from UM underwent short interval (ResultsMean tumor apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values generated from patient test-retest examinations were found to be very reproducible (|ΔADC|ConclusionThis study demonstrates the feasibility of performing a prospective analysis of DW-MRI as a predictive biomarker of NAC in breast cancer patients. In addition, we provide experimental evidence supporting the use of sensitive analytical tools, such as PRM, for evaluating ADC measurements.