US-guided Diffuse Optical Tomography: Clinicopathological Features Affect Total Hemoglobin Concentration in Breast...

To investigate breast cancers total hemoglobin concentration (THC) characteristics and its association with clinical pathologic findings.

The study was approved by the institutional review board and all patients provided written informed consent. 447 breast cancer patients, totally 455 lesions were included in our study. The size and THC of breast lesions were measured by conventional ultrasound (US) and US-guided Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) 1-2 days before surgery. Clinical and pathology information of patients was collected.

The average THC values of ER- or PR- lesions were significantly higher than the positive ones (P = .005 and P = .01,respectively); The average THC values of axillar LN+ or LVI+ were higher than the negative ones (P = .042 and P = .043, respectively). No significant THC difference was found in groups of infiltrating vs. non-infiltrating, HER2+ vs. HER2-, Ki67 high vs. Ki67 low, and different menstrual phases (P = .457, P = .917, P = .417, P = .213, respectively).The incidence ages and the lesion-nipple distances of T3 patients were lower than that of T1 and T2 (P < .001 and P < .001 respectively). The THC values and Ki67 indexes of T2 and T3 lesions were similar, but were higher than that of the T1 group (P < =0.001 and P = .006, respectively).

Clinicopathological features of breast cancer, such as ER and PR status, axillary lymph node metastasis, lymphovascular invasion, correlate with THC values. Furthermore, the Ki67 indexes can be predicted using tumor size and THC, useful for pre-surgical evaluation of cancer biology and real-time, non-invasive monitoring of NAC efficacy.