Changes in quantitative ultrasound imaging as the predictor of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer

Abstract

The presented study demonstrates the effectiveness of quantitative ultrasound imaging (H-scan ultrasound) in monitoring the breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and predicting pathological response. A group of 40 patients (51 breast tumors) participated in the study. The results showed that QUS imaging was able to distinguish between breast cancer patients responding and not responding to chemotherapy early in the course of treatment. Analysis of the percentage changes in red in the parametric images showed that this parameter can predict the response to treatment of patients with the area under the receiver operational characteristics (ROC) curve of 0.61, 0.70, 0.83, and 0.86, respectively, one week after 1st, 2nd, 3rdand 4th dose of treatment.