ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Breast Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1652932
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the Breast Tumor Microenvironment: Association to Metastasis, Novel Risk Factors and Novel Treatments and Immunotherapies: Volume II.View all 11 articles
A Multifunctional MRI model Based on IVIM and DKI Predicts HIF-1α, Ki-67, and VEGF Status in Breast Carcinoma
Provisionally accepted- 1Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University, Jining, China
- 2Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China
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Purpose: The research aims to explore the predictive significance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM), and their integrated models in relation to Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α), Ki-67, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression levels in breast carcinoma. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included 104 patients with pathologically confirmed breast carcinoma from our institution as the training set, while an external validation cohort of 91 eligible patients was recruited from another tertiary medical center. Two independently working radiologists analyzed IVIM-derived parameters apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), true diffusion coefficient (D), perfusion-related diffusion coefficient (D*), and perfusion fraction (f), and DKI-derived parameters mean diffusivity (MD) and mean kurtosis (MK). ROC curves were constructed for evaluation of diagnostic efficacy. The outcomes of the multivariate logistic regression model were employed to create a nomogram of the combined model for molecular marker status prediction. Results: High expression levels of HIF-1α, VEGF, and Ki-67 were consistently associated with lower D, MD, and ADC values, and higher perfusion-related D*, f, and MK values (all P<0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that among the individual parameters, the D value exhibited the highest predictive efficacy (AUC=0.724). ROC curve analysis revealed that the f parameter was the most powerful single indicator for predicting VEGF expression (AUC=0.882). ROC curve analysis indicated MD as the most predictive single parameter for Ki-67 expression (AUC=0.762), showing significantly greater effcacy than D* (Z=2.022, P=0.043). In the training set, the combined models integrating select parameters from IVIM and DKI showed significantly higher predictive performance (AUCs: 0.852-0.923) compared to individual parameters. This performance was replicated in the external validation set (AUCs: 0.841-0.918), with no statistically significant difference in AUCs between the training and external validation sets according to DeLong's test (all P > 0.05). Moreover, the solid line provided a better approximation of the ideal dotted line, indicating higher predictive accuracy of the nomograms (P=0.59, 0.40, and 0.08). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that IVIM may be usefully combined with DKI to help predict the expression levels of Ki-67, HIF-1α, and VEGF in breast cancer, generating hypotheses for future research.
Keywords: diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM), hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α), Ki-67, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), true diffusion coefficient (D)
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Zhao, Zhu, Wang, Zhao, Yu, Li, Li, Yue, Chen and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhanguo Sun, yingxiangszg@163.com
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