Quantitative MRI Assessment of Breast Cancer Therapy Response

The goal of this observational study is to investigate and validate multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) modalities for assessment of breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in a multi-site and multi-MRI scanner platform setting. This study is conducted at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), University of Washington (UW), and University of Iowa (UI) using Siemens, Philips, and General Electric MRI scanners, respectively. MRI is a type of scan that uses a very strong magnet and no radiation to take very detailed pictures of parts of the body. MRI is often used as standard of care to take pictures of breast tumor(s) before and after chemotherapy treatment in order to measure the tumor size changes in response to treatment, and in order to plan for surgery. MRI is used because the images it takes are very clear and the borders of the tumor can be measured very accurately. However the tumor size alone is often not a good early indicator of whether or not the tumor responds to treatment. Tumor size change usually happens late during the period of treatment, and tumor size measured with MRI after treatment can overestimate or underestimate the residual cancer. This makes it difficult to do the right surgical planning. In addition to measuring tumor size, the MRI scans in this research study will also measure changes in tumor blood vessels and the number of cancer cells per unit of tumor volume. The purpose of this study is to see whether MRI measurements of these functional tumor properties provide better early prediction and evaluation of breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy than tumor size measurement. This is an observational study because the MRI procedures are not expected to have an effect on health outcomes. Eligible participants on this study are receiving standard of care neoadjuvant treatment for their cancer.