Abstract:
Imaging examinations are important in monitoring the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy(NAC) in breast cancer patients. Mammography is easy to operate, which used to be the predominant imaging procedure used for breast cancer screening. It has great advantage in the detection of calcification, but it is not commonly used in therapeutic evaluation. CT provides high-spatial resolution, clear anatomical structures and powerful reconstruction ability, and the post-processing 3D reconstruction can show cancer more clearly, which could be used for diagnosis and therapeutic evaluation. MRI gives various sequence parameters to choose and provides the best soft tissue resolution which can show the small infiltration and inflammatory reaction around the tumor. Ultrasonic examination, as a technique without radioactivity, can show the shapes, structures and blood supplies of tumor sites and lymph node metastasis, and also can used as guidance for intervention procedures. PET/CT has unique advantage in monitoring the response to NAC by observing the changes of tumor metabolism. The image fusion of molecular metabolic changes and anatomical location can offer higher sensibility and specificity in curative effect of NAC, which is more accurate than measuring the tumor size.