PET/CT-based quantification of intratumoral heterogeneity for predicting pathological complete response in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy: A multicentre study - PubMed
5 days ago
- #Radiomics
- #Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy
- #Breast Cancer
- The study developed a quantitative measure of intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) from pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT images to predict pathological complete response (pCR) in breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).
- A retrospective analysis was conducted on 323 breast cancer patients from four hospitals, using tumor clustering and radiomic features to generate an ITH index and radiomics score.
- The combined predictive model, ICR-COME, integrated clinicopathologic characteristics, radiomics score, and ITH index, achieving high AUC values (0.95 in training, 0.87-0.88 in test cohorts).
- ICR-COME demonstrated superior predictive performance compared to conventional models, with calibration and decision curve analyses confirming its clinical utility.
- Patients predicted as non-pCR had poorer prognosis, and RNA sequencing linked high ICR-COME scores to increased immune cell infiltration and immune-related pathway activation.
- The study highlights the potential of ICR-COME as a robust tool for predicting pCR and prognosis in breast cancer patients undergoing NAC.