Integration of Pathologic Findings With Clinical-Radiologic Tumor Measurements to Quantify Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy
Abstract
The aim of the first year of this project was to develop a new method to quantify the proportion (percent) of cancer that is residual after neoadjuvant chemotherapy using standard radiologic and/or clinical measures of tumor size integrated with pathologic information about the amount of cancer within each tumor. We tested tumor cellularity and combined that information with tumor size. We have determined that tumor cellularity significantly decreases as a result of neoadjuvant (pre-operative) chemotherapy compared to control untreated breast cancers managed by surgery alone. However, the extent and variability of reduction of cellularity is considerable, particularly in the partial and minimal clinically responsive groups. When cellularity is combined with actual tumor size, there is a shift in the distribution of this measure of residual cancer in the tumor bed, suggesting that most breast cancers are more responsive to neoadjuvant chemotherapy that measurement of tumor diameter alone would indicate. Therefore, size alone is not sufficient measure of the tumor response to treatment. We are now working to incorporate our measure of cancer cellularity to combine with the radiological tumor measurements for these patients during the course of their therapy to test the product of tumor size and cellularity as a measure of actual breast cancer response.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA420419
Entities
People
- William F. Symmans
Organizations
- The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center