Shear Wave Elastography Combined With Ki67 Predicting Pathological Complete Response in Invasive Breast Cancer After...

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Radiology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Accurate prediction of pathological complete response (pCR) in invasive breast cancer following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is crucial for treatment stratification.
• Traditional methods for assessing treatment response have limitations in predicting pCR accurately.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the clinical relevance of shear wave elastography (SWE) combined with Ki67 expression for predicting pCR in invasive breast cancer after NAC.
• To evaluate the diagnostic performance of individual parameters and a composite model in assessing pCR.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 167 breast cancer patients treated with NAC.
• Comparison of clinical data, changes in tumor diameter (ΔD), Ki67 expression (ΔKi67), and SWE measurements (SWEmax, 2mm shell SWEmax, ΔSWEmax) between pCR and non-pCR groups.
• Multivariate logistic regression and ROC curve analysis were used to assess predictive values.

Main Results:

• Greater changes in ΔD and ΔKi67 were observed in the pCR group.
• Post-NAC SWEmax was lower, while ΔSWEmax (tumor and 2mm shell) was higher in the pCR group, with significant differences (p<0.05).
• A composite model combining ΔD, ΔKi67, ΔSWEmax, and 2mm shell ΔSWEmax achieved a high AUC of 0.926 for pCR prediction, outperforming individual parameters.

Conclusions:

• Changes in tumor size, Ki67 expression, and SWE parameters (both pre- and post-NAC) independently influence pCR prediction in breast cancer.
• A composite predictive model incorporating these parameters demonstrates high discriminatory ability for assessing pCR post-NAC.
• The validated model shows promising clinical utility for evaluating the ultimate pathological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.