Correlation between synthetic MRI relaxometry and apparent diffusion coefficient in breast cancer subtypes with different neoadjuvant therapy response

Abstract Background To evaluate the correlation between synthetic MRI (syMRI) relaxometry and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps in different breast cancer subtypes and treatment response subgroups. Methods Two hundred sixty-three neoadjuvant therapy (NAT)-treated breast cancer patients with baseline MRI were enrolled. Tumor annotations were obtained by drawing regions of interest (ROIs) along the lesion on T1/T2/PD and ADC maps respectively. Histogram features from T1/T2/PD and ADC maps were respectively calculated, and the correlation between each pair of identical features was analyzed. Meanwhile, features between different NAT treatment response groups were compared, and their discriminatory power was evaluated. Results Among all patients, 20 out of 27 pairs of features weakly correlated ( r = – 0.13–0.30). For triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), features from PD map in the pathological complete response (pCR) group ( r = 0.60–0.86) showed higher correlation with ADC than that of the non-pCR group ( r = 0.30–0.43), and the mean from the ADC and PD maps in the pCR group strongly correlated ( r = 0.86). For HER2-positive, few correlations were found both in the pCR and non-pCR groups. For luminal HER2-negative, T2 map correlated more with ADC than T1 and PD maps. Significant differences were seen in T2 low percentiles and median in the luminal-HER2 negative subtype, yielding moderate AUCs (0.68/0.72/0.71). Conclusions The relationship between ADC and PD maps in TNBC may indicate different NAT responses. The no-to-weak correlation between the ADC and syMRI suggests their complementary roles in tumor microenvironment evaluation. Critical relevance statement The relationship between ADC and PD maps in TNBC may indicate different NAT responses, and the no-to-weak correlation between the ADC and syMRI suggests their complementary roles in tumor microenvironment evaluation. Key points • The relationship between ADC and PD in TNBC indicates different NAT responses. • The no-to-weak correlations between ADC and syMRI complementarily evaluate tumor microenvironment. • T2 low percentiles and median predict NAT response in luminal-HER2-negative subtype. Graphical Abstract