Identifying ultrasound features of positive expression of Ki67 and P53 in breast cancer using radiomics

Purpose: To examine the relationship between ultrasonic findings and positive expression of Ki67 and P53 in breast cancer.

Material and methods: Surgical resection specimens of 263 breast cancer lesions were examined. Ultrasound examination and pathological examination were performed on each lesion for retrospective analysis. We applied regression analysis to the ultrasonic features related to the positive expression of Ki67 and P53 and obtained the corresponding models. To analyze diagnostic efficiency, we calculated the area under the curve (AUC). Additionally, we created a heat map to show the results of the cluster analysis.

Results: Lesions with higher Ki67 expression were associated with posterior acoustic enhancement, absence of an echo halo and a higher Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category. P53-positive cancer were associated with an absence of an echo halo and a higher BI-RADS category. The AUC of the regression models of Ki67 and P53 was 0.78 and 0.71, respectively.

Conclusions: Our study revealed that breast cancer ultrasonic findings were closely related to expression of molecular indicators, suggesting that ultrasound can be used to provide useful information to clinicians.