Adipocytes are active sources of numerous adipokines that work in both a paracrine and endocrine manner. It is not known that the direct contact between tumor and neighboring fat measured by pretreatment breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) affects treatment outcomes to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in breast cancer patients. A biomarker quantifying the tumor-fat interface volume from pretreatment MRI was proposed and used to predict pathologic complete response (pCR) in breast cancer patients treated with NAC. The tumor-fat interface volume was computed with data-driven clustering using multiphasic MRI. Our approach was developed and validated in two cohorts consisting of 1140 patients. A high tumor-fat interface volume was significantly associated with a non-pCR in both the development and validation cohorts (p = 0.030 and p = 0.037, respectively). Quantitative measurement of the tumor-fat interface volume based on pretreatment MRI may be useful for precision medicine and subsequently influence the treatment strategy of patients.
Keywords: MRI; adipose tissue; breast cancer; neoadjuvant chemotherapy; pathological complete response.