Conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound radiomics in breast cancer and molecular subtype diagnosis

ObjectivesThis study aimed to explore the value of conventional ultrasound (CUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) radiomics to diagnose breast cancer and predict its molecular subtype. MethodA total of 170 lesions (121 malignant, 49 benign) were selected from March 2019 to January 2022. Malignant lesions were further divided into six categories of molecular subtype: (non-)Luminal A, (non-)Luminal B, (non-)human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) overexpression, (non-)triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), hormone receptor (HR) positivity/negativity, and HER2 positivity/negativity. Participants were examined using CUS and CEUS before surgery. Regions of interest images were manually segmented. The pyradiomics toolkit and the maximum relevance minimum redundancy algorithm were utilized to extract and select features, multivariate logistic regression models of CUS, CEUS, and CUS combined with CEUS radiomics were then constructed and evaluated by fivefold cross-validation. ResultsThe accuracy of the CUS combined with CEUS model was superior to CUS model (85.4% vs. 81.3%, p<0.01). The accuracy of the CUS radiomics model in predicting the six categories of breast cancer is 68.2% (82/120), 69.3% (83/120), 83.7% (100/120), 86.7% (104/120), 73.5% (88/120), and 70.8% (85/120), respectively. In predicting breast cancer of Luminal A, HER2 overexpression, HR-positivity, and HER2 positivity, CEUS video improved the predictive performance of CUS radiomics model [accuracy=70.2% (84/120), 84.0% (101/120), 74.5% (89/120), and 72.5% (87/120), pConclusionCUS radiomics has the potential to diagnose breast cancer and predict its molecular subtype. Moreover, CEUS video has auxiliary predictive value for CUS radiomics.

Automated summary

This study aimed to explore the value of conventional ultrasound (CUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) radiomics in diagnosing breast cancer and predicting its molecular subtype. The CUS combined with CEUS model showed higher accuracy than the CUS model. The CUS radiomics model had varying accuracy in predicting different molecular subtypes, and the CEUS video improved the predictive performance of the CUS radiomics model.