A new meta-analysis provides detailed insight into the combination of radiomics and breast MRI exams for diagnosing triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

The paper, published in Clinical Radiology, analyzed six studies comprising 1,223 eligible patients. For each study, researchers calculated pooled sensitivity (SEN), pooled specificity (SPE), positive likelihood ratio (LR+), negative likelihood ratio (LR–), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), as well as the area under the receiver curve (AUC) to determine the accuracy of MRI-based radiomics for diagnosing TNBC. Their work revealed the method to be an effective diagnostic tool, noting its high specificity for detecting TNBC.

“In routine imaging diagnosis, a lesion can be easily misdiagnosed as benign, thus delaying treatment. Therefore, a non-invasive, early, and accurate diagnostic method for TNBC is urgently needed, and the development of these methods has become a hot topic in the clinic,” explain co-authors Y.S. Sha, of the Department of Radiology at Yantai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and J.F. Chen, from the Department of Radiology at Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, both in China.

The authors noted that, although MRI has high sensitivity for detecting breast cancer, it is somewhat limited when it comes to identifying TNBC. Prior studies have examined how MRI-based radiomics analyses can be of benefit for TNBC detection, but they lack consistency in size, methodology and model construction, which makes it difficult to validate or discredit and promising results derived from the work.

Due to the aggressive, often invasive nature of TNBC, proper diagnosis and prompt treatment catered specifically to such a diagnosis are pertinent for patients. MRI-based radiomics analysis as a means of predicting molecular status of prostate and brain cancers has been proven to be highly successful, the authors noted. This is what prompted them to dive deeper into the application’s efficacy for diagnosing TNBC.