Bilateral asymmetry of parenchymal kinetics from ultrafast DCE-MRI predicts HER2+ breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy

We retrospectively reviewed data from 28 patients with HER2-positive breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) who underwent a protocol that included ultrafast DCE-MRI (temporal resolution = 3 – 9 seconds) for the first minute after contrast administration prior to NAC. We measured quantitative kinetic background parenchymal enhancement parameters (kBPEs) from ipsi- and contra-lateral normal parenchyma separately to quantify bilateral parenchymal enhancement asymmetry. The results show that HER2-positive patients with similar pre-NAC $Kᵗʳᵃⁿˢ$ in ipsi-and contralateral normal parenchyma were more likely to achieve pathologic complete response post NAC.