Signatures in Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Applications

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2024) | Viewed by 6750

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Electronics and Communıcation Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34469, Turkey
Interests: microwave tomography; microwave breast cancer imaging; microwave medical device development; electromagnetic diagnostics; inverse scattering problems

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Guest Editor
Department of Electronics and Communıcation Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34469, Turkey
Interests: microwave dielectric spectroscopy; microwave diagnostics; evolutionary optimization techniques; wearable and implantable antennas

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Guest Editor
Department of Radiology, Internal Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Marmara University, Istanbul 34899, Turkey
Interests: radiodiagnostics; breast imaging; microwave breast imaging; microwave breast cancer diagnosis; musculoskeletal imaging

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Breast cancer constitutes 30% of all cancer types diagnosed in women. It is also the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. The early detection of the disease is crucial to increase the treatment performance and survival rate of women diagnosed with breast cancer. Traditional diagnostic technologies such as mammography have been proven to be reliable screening tools. Screening mammography is only recommended to women over 40 years old due to the harmful effects of ionizing radiation. However, an increasing number of breast cancer diagnoses are starting to be made in women at their early twenties. Therefore, the current screening technologies must be improved, and new methods need to be developed to increase the diagnostic accuracy and to enable the early diagnosis of breast cancer.

To this end, the goal of this Special Issue is to focus on the novel technologies and improvement in current methods which will enable improved early breast cancer diagnostics for women in their early twenties. Research regarding the improvement of the current diagnostics technologies such as mammography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound improved with artificial intelligence, as well as new medical diagnostics technologies including microwave imaging, impedance tomography, biomarker studies and others are welcome. Early animal studies or clinical trials of new methodologies are also welcome. This Special Issue will accept both review and original research articles.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Akduman
Dr. Tuba Yilmaz
Dr. Onur Bugdayci
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • novel applications in early breast cancer diagnosis
  • clinical testing of breast cancer diagnostic devices
  • breast cancer biomarkers
  • AI-aided radiodiagnostics
  • microwave medical imaging
  • microwave medical diagnostics
  • RF/microwave therapeutics
  • dielectric property characterization
  • electromagnetic detection and diagnosis
  • breast cancer research

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 6911 KiB  
Article
Idiopathic Granulomatous Mastitis or Breast Cancer? A Comparative MRI Study in Patients Presenting with Non-Mass Enhancement
by Fatma Nur Soylu Boy, Gul Esen Icten, Yasemin Kayadibi, Iksan Tasdelen and Dolunay Alver
Diagnostics 2023, 13(8), 1475; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13081475 - 19 Apr 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2687
Abstract
Objective: To compare and determine discriminative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of idiopathic granulomatous mastitis (IGM) and breast cancer (BC) that present as non-mass enhancement. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study includes 68 IGM and 75 BC cases that presented with non-mass enhancement [...] Read more.
Objective: To compare and determine discriminative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of idiopathic granulomatous mastitis (IGM) and breast cancer (BC) that present as non-mass enhancement. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study includes 68 IGM and 75 BC cases that presented with non-mass enhancement on breast MRI. All patients with a previous history of breast surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy due to BC or a previous history of mastitis were excluded. On MRI images, presence of architectural distortion skin thickening, edema, hyperintense ducts containing protein, dilated fat-containing ducts and axillary adenopathies were noted. Cysts with enhancing walls, lesion size, lesion location, fistulas, distribution, internal enhancement pattern and kinetic features of non-mass enhancement were recorded. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were calculated. Pearson chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, independent t test and Mann–Whitney U test were used as needed for statistical analysis and comparison. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to determine the independent predictors. Results: IGM patients were significantly younger than BC patients (p < 0.001). Cysts with thin (p < 0.05) or thick walls (p = 0.001), multiple cystic lesions, (p < 0.001), cystic lesions draining to the skin (p < 0.001), and skin fistulas (p < 0.05) were detected more often in IGM. Central (p < 0.05) and periareolar (p < 0.001) location and focal skin thickening (p < 0.05) were significantly more common in IGM. Architectural distortion (p = 0.001) and diffuse skin thickening (p < 0.05) were associated with BC. Multiple regional distribution was more common in IGM, whereas diffuse distribution and clumped enhancement were more common in BC (p < 0.05). In kinetic analysis, persistent enhancement was more common in IGM, whereas plateau and wash-out types were more common in BC (p < 0.001). Independent predictors for BC were age, diffuse skin thickening and kinetic curve types. There was no significant difference in the diffusion characteristics. Based on these findings, MRI had a sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 88%, 67.65%, and 78.32%, respectively, in differentiating IGM from BC. Conclusions: In conclusion, for non-mass enhancement, MRI can rule out malignancy with a considerably high sensitivity; however, specificity is still low, as many IGM patients have overlapping findings. Final diagnosis should be complemented with histopathology whenever necessary. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Signatures in Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Applications)
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17 pages, 1430 KiB  
Article
Correlation of Shear-Wave Elastography and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Values in Breast Cancer and Their Relationship with the Prognostic Factors
by Sebnem Orguc and Çağdaş Rıza Açar
Diagnostics 2022, 12(12), 3021; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12123021 - 2 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1690
Abstract
Background: Diffusion-weighted imaging and elastography are widely accepted methods in the evaluation of breast masses, however, there is very limited data comparing the two methods. The apparent diffusion coefficient is a measure of the diffusion of water molecules obtained by diffusion-weighted imaging as [...] Read more.
Background: Diffusion-weighted imaging and elastography are widely accepted methods in the evaluation of breast masses, however, there is very limited data comparing the two methods. The apparent diffusion coefficient is a measure of the diffusion of water molecules obtained by diffusion-weighted imaging as a part of breast MRI. Breast elastography is an adjunct to conventional ultrasonography, which provides a noninvasive evaluation of the stiffness of the lesion. Theoretically, increased tissue density and stiffness are related to each other. The purpose of this study is to compare MRI ADC values of the breast masses with quantitative elastography based on ultrasound shear wave measurements and to investigate their possible relation with the prognostic factors and molecular subtypes. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated histopathologically proven 147 breast lesions. The molecular classification of malignant lesions was made according to the prognostic factors. Shear wave elastography was measured in kiloPascal (kPa) units which is a quantitative measure of tissue stiffness. DWI was obtained using a 1.5-T MRI system. Results: ADC values were strongly inversely correlated with elasticity (r = −0.662, p < 0.01) according to Pearson Correlation. In our study, the cut-off value of ADC was 1.00 × 10−3 cm2/s to achieve a sensitivity of 84.6% and specificity of 75.4%, and the cut-off value of elasticity was 105.5 kPa to achieve the sensitivity of 96.3% and specificity 76.9% to discriminate between the malignant and benign breast lesions. The status of prognostic factors was not correlated with the ADC values and elasticity. Conclusions: Elasticity and ADC values are correlated. Both cannot predict the status of prognostic factors and differentiate between molecular subtypes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Signatures in Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Applications)
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13 pages, 2046 KiB  
Article
Rotationally Adjustable Hyperthermia Applicators: A Computational Comparative Study of Circular and Linear Array Applicators
by Gulsah Yildiz, Tuba Yilmaz and Ibrahim Akduman
Diagnostics 2022, 12(11), 2677; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12112677 - 3 Nov 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1323
Abstract
Microwave breast hyperthermia (MH) aims to increase the temperature at the tumor location with minimal change in the healthy tissue. To this end, the specific absorption rate (SAR) inside the breast is optimized. The choice of the MH applicator [...] Read more.
Microwave breast hyperthermia (MH) aims to increase the temperature at the tumor location with minimal change in the healthy tissue. To this end, the specific absorption rate (SAR) inside the breast is optimized. The choice of the MH applicator design is important for a superior energy focus on the target. Although hyperthermia treatment planning (HTP) changes for every patient, the MH applicator is required to be effective for different breast models and tumor types. The linear applicator (LA) is one of the previously proposed applicator designs with linearly arranged antennas; however, it suffers from low focusing ability in certain breast regions due to its unsymmetrical geometrical features. In this paper, we propose to radially adjust the LA to obtain alternative excitation schemes without actually changing the applicator. Antipodal Vivaldi antennas were utilized, and the antenna excitations were optimized with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The comparison of the rotated and the fixed linear applicator, between 12-antenna circular and linear applicators, and finally, between a 24-antenna circular applicator are provided. Within the 12 rotation angles and two target locations that were analyzed, the 135° axially rotated linear applicator gave a 35% to 84% higher target-to-breast SAR ratio (TBRS) and a 21% to 28% higher target-to-breast temperature ratio (TBRT) than the fixed linear applicator. For the deep-seated target, the 135° rotated linear applicator had an 80% higher TBRS and a 59% higher TBRT than the 12-antenna circular applicator, while the results were comparable to the 24-antenna circular applicator. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Signatures in Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Applications)
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