Karthik Panchanatheeswaran1,
Rajinder Parshad1, Rani G. Sah2, Uma Sharma2,
Naranamangalam R. Jagannathan2, Vurthaluru Seenu1, Raju
Sharma3, Sanjay Thulkar3
1Department
of Surgical Disciplines, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
Delhi, India; 2Department of NMR & MRI Facility, All India
Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India; 3Department
of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi,
India
In patients with locally advanced breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy pathological complete response is the ultimate goal as it strongly correlates with a favorable prognosis. In this study we compared clinical examination, morphological imaging (mammography, USG, and MRI) and functional imaging (color Doppler, DW-MRI, MR T-SI curve and MR spectroscopy) in evaluating tumor response. We found that MRI has the maximum specificity to predict pCR and has highest reliability for predicting residual tumour size. The functional imaging can supplement morphological imaging modalities in predicting tumour responses to chemotherapy and may have a promising role in future in tumour response evaluation.
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