Dataset Information

Nomograms for Predicting Axillary Lymph Node Status Reconciled With Preoperative Breast Ultrasound Images.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The axillary lymph node (ALN) status of breast cancer patients is an important prognostic indicator. The use of primary breast mass features for the prediction of ALN status is rare. Two nomograms based on preoperative ultrasound (US) images of breast tumors and ALNs were developed for the prediction of ALN status.

Methods

A total of 743 breast cancer cases collected from 2016 to 2019 at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University were randomly divided into a training set (n = 523) and a test set (n = 220). A primary tumor feature model (PTFM) and ALN feature model (ALNFM) were separately generated based on tumor features alone, and a combination of features was used for the prediction of ALN status. Logistic regression analysis was used to construct the nomograms. A receiver operating characteristic curve was plotted to obtain the area under the curve (AUC) to evaluate accuracy, and bias-corrected AUC values and calibration curves were obtained by bootstrap resampling for internal and external verification. Decision curve analysis was applied to assess the clinical utility of the models.

Results

The AUCs of the PTFM were 0.69 and 0.67 for the training and test sets, respectively, and the bias-corrected AUCs of the PTFM were 0.67 and 0.67, respectively. Moreover, the AUCs of the ALNFM were 0.86 and 0.84, respectively, and the bias-corrected AUCs were 0.85 and 0.81, respectively. Compared with the PTFM, the ALNFM showed significantly improved prediction accuracy (p < 0.001). Both the calibration and decision curves of the ALNFM nomogram indicated greater accuracy and clinical practicality. When the US tumor size was ≤21.5 mm, the Spe was 0.96 and 0.92 in the training and test sets, respectively. When the US tumor size was greater than 21.5 mm, the Sen was 0.85 in the training set and 0.87 in the test set. Our further research showed that when the US tumor size was larger than 35 mm, the Sen was 0.90 in the training set and 0.93 in the test set.

Conclusion

The ALNFM could effectively predict ALN status based on US images especially for different US tumor size.

SUBMITTER: Liu D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8058421 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Purpose:Axillary lymph node (ALN) involvement is an important prognostic factor of early invasive breast cancer. The objective of this study was to establish simple nomograms for predicting ALN involvement based on ultrasound (US) characteristics and evaluate the predictive value of US in the detection of ALN involvement. Patients and Methods:A total of 1328 patients with cT1-2N0 breast cancer by physical exam were retrospectively analyzed. Univariate analysis was used for the comparison of variables, and multivariate analysis was performed by binary logistic regression analysis. The R software was used to establish simple nomograms based on the US characteristics alone. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the prediction model and the verification group were drawn, and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the discrimination of the prediction model. A calibration curve was plotted to assess the nomogram predictions vs the actual observations of the ALN metastasis rate and axillary tumor burden rate. Results:The ALN metastasis rates of the training group and the validation group were 35.1% and 34.1%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that molecular subtype, lymphovascular invasion, mass descriptors (size, margin, microcalcification and blood flow signal) and LN descriptors (shape, cortical thickness and long-to-short ratio) were independent impact factors in early breast cancer. The AUC of ALN metastasis rate of prediction model based on US features was 0.802, the AUC of high tumor burden rate was 0.873, and the AUC of external validation group was 0.731 and 0.802, respectively. The calibration curve of the nomogram showed that the nomogram predictions are consistent with the actual metastasis rate and the high tumor burden rate. The results showed that preoperative US had a sensitivity of 59.4% and a specificity of 88.9% for predicting the ALN metastasis rate. Conclusion:The successfully established nomograms based on US characteristics to predict ALN metastasis rate and high axillary tumor burden rate in early breast cancer can achieve individual prediction. Compared with other nomogram predictions, it is more intuitive, and can help clinical decision-making; thus, it should be promoted. However, at this time US features alone are insufficient to replace sentinel lymph node biopsy.

Project description:Objective: Axillary lymph node (ALN) metastasis status is important in guiding treatment in breast cancer. The aims were to assess how deep convolutional neural network (CNN) performed compared with radiomics analysis in predicting ALN metastasis using breast ultrasound, and to investigate the value of both intratumoral and peritumoral regions in ALN metastasis prediction. Methods: We retrospectively enrolled 479 breast cancer patients with 2,395 breast ultrasound images. Based on the intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined intra- and peritumoral regions, three CNNs were built using DenseNet, and three radiomics models were built using random forest, respectively. By combining the molecular subtype, another three CNNs and three radiomics models were built. All models were built on training cohort (343 patients 1,715 images) and evaluated on testing cohort (136 patients 680 images) with ROC analysis. Another prospective cohort of 16 patients was enrolled to further test the models. Results: AUCs of image-only CNNs in both training/testing cohorts were 0.957/0.912 for combined region, 0.944/0.775 for peritumoral region, and 0.937/0.748 for intratumoral region, which were numerically higher than their corresponding radiomics models with AUCs of 0.940/0.886, 0.920/0.724, and 0.913/0.693. The overall performance of image-molecular CNNs in terms of AUCs on training/testing cohorts slightly increased to 0.962/0.933, 0.951/0.813, and 0.931/0.794, respectively. AUCs of both CNNs and radiomics models built on combined region were significantly better than those on either intratumoral or peritumoral region on the testing cohort (p < 0.05). In the prospective study, the CNN model built on combined region achieved the highest AUC of 0.95 among all image-only models. Conclusions: CNNs showed numerically better overall performance compared with radiomics models in predicting ALN metastasis in breast cancer. For both CNNs and radiomics models, combining intratumoral, and peritumoral regions achieved significantly better performance.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Papillary thyroid carcinoma is a type of indolent tumor with a dramatically increasing incidence rate and stably high survival rate. Reducing the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of papillary thyroid carcinoma is clinically emergent and important. A radiomics model is proposed in this article to predict lymph node metastasis, the most important risk factor of papillary thyroid carcinoma, based on noninvasive routine preoperative ultrasound images. METHODS:Four hundred fifty ultrasound manually segmented images of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma with lymph node status obtained from pathology report were enrolled in our retrospective study. A radiomics evaluation of 614 high-throughput features were calculated, including size, shape, margin, boundary, orientation, position, echo pattern, posterior acoustic pattern, and calcification features. Then, combined feature selection strategy was used to select features with the greatest ability to discriminate lymph node status. A support vector machine classifier was employed to build and validate the prediction model. Another independent testing cohort was used to further evaluate the performance of the radiomics model. RESULTS:Among 614 radiomics features, 50 selected features most reflecting echo pattern, posterior acoustic pattern, and calcification showed the superior lymph node status distinguishable performance with area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.753, 0.740, and 0.743 separately when using each type of features predicting the lymph node status. The results of model based on all 50 final features predicting the lymph node status shown an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.782, and accuracy of 0.712. In the independent testing cohort, the proposed approach showed similar results, with area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.727 and accuracy of 0.710. CONCLUSION:Papillary thyroid carcinoma with lymph node metastasis usually shows a complex echo pattern, posterior region homogeneity, and macrocalcification or multiple calcification. The radiomics model proposed in this article is a promising method for assessing the risk of papillary thyroid carcinoma metastasis noninvasively.

Project description:BackgroundIn the last three decades, axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) has been replaced by sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in all clinically node-negative patients. However, when SLNB alone is performed in clinically node-positive patients who are rendered node-negative by neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the procedure has a high false-negative rate and other complementary procedures have been described to improve its reliability. Preoperative tattooing of the suspicious lymph node with India ink at the time of biopsy, in addition to sentinel lymph node biopsy, is a reasonable alternative. The objective of our study is to determine, in clinically node-positive patients, the feasibility of tattooing suspicious axillary lymph node at the time of percutaneous needle biopsy and its retrieval at the time of surgery.MethodsA prospective experimental study will be conducted divided into two phases-phases I and II. In phase I, 10 patients committed to undergo upfront surgery (without neoadjuvant chemotherapy) will have a suspicious lymph node tattooed by injecting India ink at the time of core needle biopsy. All patients will undergo a SLNB, during which the axilla will be inspected to determine if the tattooed lymph node can be visualized. Routine microscopic examination will follow, and concordance between the sentinel and tattooed node will also be established. In phase II, the process will be repeated for 30 patients who undergo surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The analysis will be performed in Stata version 12.DiscussionThere is a need to identify and test the techniques for the down-staged axilla in post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy patients, which are not only practical and limit the number of invasive procedures necessary but are representative of the new axillary status and help limit the extent of axillary surgery without negatively impacting outcomes. We propose that, for the patient undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy with a biopsy-proven disease in the axilla, this could be achieved by India ink which allows marking, identification, and retrieval of the biopsied lymph node. Retrieval of this previously biopsied lymph node along with sentinel nodes, if found to be representative of the status of the remainder of the axilla, could potentially eliminate the need for routine axillary lymph node dissection and thus limit morbidity.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03939598. Retrospectively registered on 7 May 2019.