Voxel-Based Analysis of Early DCE-MRI Changes May Predict the Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer Patients

Xia Li¹, Lori R. Arlinghaus¹, A. Bapsi chakravarthy¹, E. Brian Welch¹, Jaime Farley¹, Ingrid A. Mayer¹, Vandana G. Abramson¹, Mark C. Kelley¹, Ingrid M. Meszoely¹, Julie A. Means-Powell¹, Ana M. Grau¹, Sandeep Bhave¹, Thomas E. Yankeelov¹

To monitor tumor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, investigators have begun to employ the quantitative physiological parameters available from dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). However, most studies track the changes in average parameter values obtained from the whole tumor region of interest, thereby discarding all spatial information on tumor heterogeneity. In this study, we applied a novel registration algorithm to longitudinal DCE-MRI data and performed a voxel-by-voxel analysis. The results indicate that voxel-based analysis, after longitudinal registration, may improve the ability of DCE-MRI to separate pathologic complete responders from non-responders after one cycle of therapy when using the fast exchange regime model.