Role of texture analysis in breast MRI as a cancer biomarker: A review

Breast cancer is a known heterogeneous disease. Current clinically utilized histopathologic biomarkers may undersample tumor heterogeneity, resulting in higher rates of misdiagnosis for breast cancer. MRI can provide a whole-tumor sampling of disease burden and is widely utilized in clinical care. Texture analysis can provide a localized description of breast cancer, with particular emphasis on quantifying breast lesion heterogeneity. The object of this review is to provide an overview of texture analysis applications towards breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response evaluation and review the role of image-based texture features as noninvasive prognostic and predictive biomarkers. Level of Evidence: 5 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019;49:927-938.