Can breast MRI and adjunctive Doppler ultrasound improve the accuracy of predicting pathological complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy?

BACKGROUND

To examine the accuracy of MRI and Doppler ultrasound (US) for detecting residual tumor after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for breast cancer and evaluate whether adjunctive Doppler US improves the MRI accuracy.

METHODS

We reviewed 276 invasive breast cancer cases treated with NAC. Tumors were classified into four subtypes based on estrogen receptor and HER2 status. Response to NAC was evaluated using contrast-enhanced MRI and Doppler US. Residual Doppler flow was assumed to indicate a residual tumor. MRI and Doppler findings were compared with the histopathological findings of resected specimens. Pathological complete response (pCR) was defined as neither in situ nor invasive cancer left.

RESULTS

Of the 276 tumors, imaging complete responses were observed using MRI and Doppler US in 62 (22%) and 111 (40%), respectively, whereas pCR was achieved in 44 (16%). MRI and Doppler US predicted residual tumor with 88% and 69% sensitivity, 80% and 91% specificity, 87% and 73% accuracy, 96% and 98% PPV, and 56% and 36% NPV, respectively. The accuracies of MRI and Doppler US were significantly higher for HER2-negative than HER2-positive tumors (p < 0.001 and p = 0.043, respectively). Seven (26%) of 27 false-negative cases identified by MRI were correctly diagnosed as positives with adjunctive Doppler US.

CONCLUSIONS

Although MRI accurately detected residual tumor with 87% accuracy, this was still not sufficient to meet clinical demands and differed with tumor subtype. Adjunctive Doppler US in cases that appear to show a complete response on MRI might reduce chances of false negatives and increase the NPV of MRI for predicting residual tumor.