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Abstract

Background The purpose of this work was to investigate noninvasive early detection of treatment response of breast cancer patients to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) using chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) measurements sensitive to amide proton transfer (APT) at 7 T. Methods CEST images were acquired in 10 tumors of nine breast cancer patients treated with NAC. APT signals in the tumor, before and after the first cycle of NAC, were quantified using a three-pool Lorentzian fit of the z-spectra in the region of interest. The changes in APT were subsequently related to pathological response after surgery defined by the Miller-Payne system. Results Significant differences (P <  0.05, unpaired Mann-Whitney test) were found in the APT signal before and after the first cycle of NAC in six out of 10 lesions, of which two showed a pathological complete response. Of the remaining four lesions, one showed a pathological complete response. No significant difference in changes of APT signal were found between the different pathological responses to NAC treatment (P > 0.05, Kruskal-Wallis test). Conclusions This preliminary study shows the feasibility of using APT CEST magnetic resonance imaging as a noninvasive biomarker to assess the effect of NAC in an early stage of NAC treatment of breast cancer patients.