ArticleCancer imaging : the official publication of the International Cancer Imaging Society2025
Value of early metabolic response for predicting axillary pathological complete response during neoadjuvant systemic therapy in triple negative and HER2-amplified breast cancers: impact of tumor subtypes.
Article in Cancer imaging : the official publication of the International Cancer Imaging Society, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association of PET/CT-Derived Metabolic Parameters with Pathological Complete Response After Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy in Breast Cancer: An Analysis Across Molecular Subtypes.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- [La Radiologia medica · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn the era of therapeutic de-escalation, the opportunity to move from systematic axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) to sentinel lymph node biopsy in axillary node-positive breast cancer patients after neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST) is currently considered. The purpose of this study was to identify FDG-PET parameters associated with axillary pathological complete response (pRAx) in the most proliferative tumor subtypes, eg Triple Negative (TN) and HER2-amplified.
methodsPatients with newly-diagnosed TN or HER2-amplified breast cancer, with pathologically-proven axillary node metastasis, no distant metastasis and indication of NST were prospectively included from September 2017 to December 2021. Sequential FDG-PET/CT scans were performed at baseline and after one cycle of NST. Metabolic parameters at baseline and their changes (Delta in %) of axillary nodes were assessed: SUVmax, SUVratio (SUVmax/SUVmax liver), SUVpeak, SUVmean, TLG and MTV. Logistic regressions with ROC curves were used to determine parameters associated with pRAx.
resultsSixty-one patients (24 TN, 19 ER-negative/HER2-amplified and 18 ER-positive/HER2-amplified) were recruited. Median value of Axillary SUVmax at baseline were 7.9, 7.0 and 5.2 and Delta Axillary SUVmax were -62%,-60% and -47% in these 3 subgroups, respectively. In univariate model, in the whole population, Delta Axillary SUVmax showed the greatest AUC for prediction of pRAx of 0.72 (95%CI: 0.59-0.85), whereas AUC of Axillary SUVmax at baseline was not statistically significant (AUC = 0.6 (95%CI: 0.46-0.74)). Specificity, sensitivity, PPV and NPV of Delta Axillary SUVmax were 96%, 49%, 94% and 58% respectively for predicting pRAx with a threshold of -68.7%. Odd Ratio associated with Delta Axillary SUVmax < -68.7% compared to ≥ -68.7% was 24.0 (95%CI: 2.9-194). In multivariate model, adjusted on tumor subtypes, Delta Axillary SUVmax was still significantly associated with pRAx (OR = 20.7 (95%IC: 2.5-172). AUCs adjusted on the tumor subtype were not significantly modified compared to univariate model (p = 0.45 compared to unadjusted AUC) suggesting that thresholds were not significantly different in each tumor subtype.
conclusionsDelta Axillary SUVmax seems to be the most relevant metabolic parameter to predict an axillary pathological complete response and early metabolic response could be a valuable tool for selecting patients eligible for axillary surgical de-escalation after NST, regardless tumor subtypes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.