Title : Shear-wave elastography combined with superb microvascular imaging for evaluating histologic response in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Abstract:
The shear-wave elastography (SWE) and superb microvascular imaging (SMI) are novel ultrasound imaging techniques to evaluate tissue hardness and blood flow characteristics, respectively. The utility of these techniques for evaluating histologic response in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy remains unknown.
Methods: A total of 49 breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy between January 2023 and September 2023 at *** Hospital were scanned with SWE, SMI and gray-scale ultrasonography at baseline and the end of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Ultrasound parameters, including maximum tumor diameter (Dmax), maximum elastic value (Emax), peak systolic velocity (PSV), and resistance index (RI) at both scan session were obtained. The histologic response for breast cancer following neoadjuvant chemotherapy was classified as non-response (Miller-Payne’s grade 1-2) or response (Miller-Payne’s grade 3-5). The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve, binary logistic regression and descriptive comparison were performed.
Results: 13 and 36 patients were categorized into the non-response group and response group, respectively. The percentages of change of Dmax, Emax, PSV and RI were significantly higher in the response group than those in the non-response group. The binary regression model suggest that ΔEmax (OR 0.842), ΔPSV (OR 0.942), and ΔRI (OR 0.802) were independently associated with pathologic response. ROC curves showed that the area under the curve for distinguishing the non-response group from the response group was largest for ΔRI (AUC=0.811), and area under the curve for the combined regression model was 0.921.
Conclusions: Combined use of SWE and SMI may be useful for the preoperative identification of non-responsiveness in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
