Clinical Study of Post-Chemotherapy Cardiotoxicity in Breast Cancer Patients Based on Ultrasound Radiomics

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Oncology
• Radiology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Chemotherapy for breast cancer can lead to cardiotoxicity, impacting patient outcomes.
• Early detection of cardiotoxicity is crucial for managing treatment and preventing severe cardiac events.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a combined model using ultrasound radiomics for detecting cardiotoxicity in breast cancer patients post-chemotherapy.
• To assess the diagnostic performance of this novel model compared to existing clinical and radiomics approaches.

Main Methods:

• A cohort of 208 breast cancer patients with echocardiographic images post-chemotherapy was analyzed.
• A combined radiomics model was developed by extracting and filtering myocardial features from ultrasound images.
• The model's diagnostic performance was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and area under the curve (AUC) analysis.

Main Results:

• The combined model demonstrated superior diagnostic performance with an AUC of 0.88 in the training set and 0.87 in the validation set.
• It significantly outperformed both the clinical model (AUC 0.73/0.75) and the radiomics-only model (AUC 0.84/0.81).
• The model showed favorable goodness-of-fit, indicating reliability in predicting cardiotoxicity.

Conclusions:

• The combined ultrasound radiomics model is an effective tool for the early diagnosis of cardiotoxicity in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
• This approach offers a promising method for monitoring cardiac health during cancer treatment.