Ultrasound combined with Ki-67 for predicting pathological complete response of triple-negative breast cancer after neoadjuvant chemotherapy / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the value of ultrasound and Ki-67 for early predicting pathological complete response (pCR) of triple negative breast cancer(TNBC) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).Methods:Retrospective analysis was performed in 190 patients with TNBC who underwent surgery after NAC treatment at the Cancer Hospital of Fudan University from January 2019 to December 2022. All patients underwent ultrasound examination before and after 2 and 4 cycles of NAC treatment. According to the operation pathological results after NAC, the patients were divided into pCR group and non-pCR group. The differences in ultrasound and Ki-67 parameters were compared between the pCR and non-pCR groups, and binary Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the independent predictors for pCR. The ROC curve was plotted to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy.Results:Tumor maximum diameter, relative change rates of tumor maximum diameter after 2-cycle and 4-cycle NAC (ΔD2, ΔD4), relative change rate of lymph node short diameter after 2-cycle NAC (ΔS2), T-stage, N-stage and Ki-67 showed statistically significant differences between the pCR group and the non-pCR group (all P<0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that ΔD4, T-stage, N-stage and Ki-67 were independent predictors for pCR ( OR=1.029, P=0.011; OR=0.300, P=0.009; OR=0.653, P=0.048; OR=1.028, P=0.001). The area under the curve (AUC) of pCR was 0.804 (95% CI=0.742-0.866), the sensitivity and specificity were 67.5% and 83.2% respectively. Conclusions:The combination parameters of ΔD4, T-stage, N-stage and Ki-67 have certain clinical value for predicting pCR of TNBC.