Early Prediction of Breast Cancer Therapeutic Response and Evaluation of Residual Disease Using Quantitative DCE-MRI

Alina Tudorica¹, Karen Y. Oh¹, Stephen Y.-C. Chui¹, Nicole Roy¹, Megan L. Troxell¹, Yiyi Chen¹, Arpana Naik¹, Ariel Lopez-Chavez¹, Megan L. Holtorf¹, Aneela Afzal¹, Mohan L. Jayatilake¹, Zunqiu Chen¹, Charles S. Springer, Jr. ¹, Xin Li¹, Wei Huang¹

Eleven consecutive women with locally advanced breast cancer underwent research DCE-MRI before, after one cycle, at midpoint, and after completion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. MRI data were analyzed using the Standard and Shutter-Speed models (SM and SSM). % changes in tumor Ktrans (SM and SSM), kep (SM and SSM), and tau_i (SSM only), as well as the absolute values of Ktrans (SSM) and kep (SM and SSM) after one cycle of therapy completely discriminated 3 responders from 8 non-responders. The tau_i value after therapy correlated significantly with residual disease burden.