Predicting histopathological types and molecular subtype of breast tumors: A comparative study using amide proton transfer-weighted imaging, intravoxel incoherent motion and diffusion kurtosis imaging.

Purpose: To evaluate the predictive performance of multiparameter and histogram features derived from amide proton transfer-weighted imaging (APTWI), intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) for histopathological types of breast tumors.

Methods: Region of interest (ROI) was delineated by outlining the largest slice of the tumor on the false-color images of the DKI, IVIM and APTWI parameters, and extracted the histogram features. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the performance of parameters in predicting benign and malignant breast lesions, molecular prognostic biomarkers, lymph node status, and subtypes of breast lesions. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to determine the correlations between each parameter and clinical-pathological factors.

Results: All 52 breast lesions were enrolled in this prospective study, including 8 benign lesions and 44 breast cancers. To diagnose malignant and benign breast lesions, the value of APT performed best, with the AUC reaching 0.983. According to the different imaging methods, the APTWI performed best. To predict the positive status of ER, PR, Ki67, the value of D, D, f performed best, with the AUC values reaching 0.743, 0.770, 0.848, respectively. For the identification of Luminal B, HER2-enriched, and TNBC breast cancers, K, f , and D performed best, with AUC values reaching 0.679, 0.826, 0.771, respectively.

Conclusion: This study found the APTWI, IVIM and DKI parameters could diagnose breast cancer. The histogram features of DKI and IVIM, based on tumor heterogeneity, may help to predict breast cancer subtypes.