Figure 14.

Example of early assessment of the response to NAC using dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging (DCE-MRI). 37-year-old patient with a G3, triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma of the right breast (arrows, same case shown in Figure 4). (A–C) = pre-NAC examinations; (D–F) = early assessment examination after two cycles of cytotoxic NAC. Ktrans (A,D), Kep (B,E) and Ve (C,F) maps. Early assessment showed a reduction of Ktrans (286 vs. 83.9 min−1) and kep (91.49 vs. 20.14 min−1 × 100) with a slight increase of Ve (275.34 vs. 308.08 × 1000) signal intensity on ADC maps (C) compared to the pre-treatment examination (F). Pathological complete response (pCR) was proved at pathology examination after surgical resection. Reprinted under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license from: Romeo V, Accardo G, Perillo T, Basso L, Garbino N, Nicolai E, Maurea S, Salvatore M. Assessment and Prediction of Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer: A Comparison of Imaging Modalities and Future Perspectives. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Jul 14;13(14):3521.