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MRI measures may predict breast cancer prognosis

Issue: January 25, 2012

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Features of quantitative MRI were linked to prognostic tumor markers, according to study results presented during the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

The aim of the retrospective study was to examine the correlation between quantitative MRI features and prognostic pathological factors from 41 invasive cancers in 36 patients. There were 36 ductal and five lobular carcinomas in the analysis.

Eligible patients had undergone pretreatment 1.5 T breast MRI (including diffusion-weighted MRI and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI) from October 2005 to May 2006.

“Tumor grade and some histopathological markers, such as ER, PR, HER-2, Ki67 and P53, are prognostic factors that can also be associated with tumor cellularity and vascularity,” the researchers wrote.

They evaluated MRI measures, including lesion dynamic contrast-enhanced kinetic features, which were defined as peak initial enhancement, percent rapid enhancement and percent washout, and diffusion-weighted MRI normalized apparent diffusion coefficient values.

One or more kinetic parameters of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI was significantly associated (P<.05). with each of the histological markers except ER, which demonstrated a marginal association with percent washout (P=.05).

Kinetic parameters of the dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI significantly discriminated grade-3 tumors from grade-1 and grade-2 tumors. These kinetic parameters also significantly discriminated luminal from luminal B and basal-like intrinsic subtypes.

Multivariate analysis results indicated two significant independent predictors of tumor grade: peak initial enhancement (P=.0094) and percent washout (P=.0005). Significant independent predictors of PR status included percent washout (P=.0054) and normalized apparent coefficient values (P=.0027).

Peak initial enhancement was the only significant independent predictor of both Ki67 (P=.014) and intrinsic subtype (P=.015).

“This preliminary study suggests that quantitative MRI measures are associated with prognostic tumor markers and may provide valuable noninvasive characterization of tumor biology,” the researchers wrote.

For more information:

• Parsian S. #P2-08-03. Presented at: the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; Dec. 6-10, 2011; San Antonio.

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