High-background parenchymal enhancement in the contralateral breast is an imaging biomarker for favorable prognosis in patients with triple-negative breast cancer treated with chemotherapy

This study aimed to analyze the association between background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) in the contralateral breast tissue on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and clinicopathologic parameters in patients with unilateral breast carcinoma and to investigate its potential prognostic significance. A total of 467 patients who were pathologically confirmed to have unilateral breast cancer and underwent breast MRI were recruited to participate in this cohort study. BPE was assessed in the healthy contralateral breast. Minimal and mild levels were classified as low BPE, whereas moderate and marked levels were classified as high BPE. The effects of BPE on clinicopathologic parameters, overall survival (OS), and invasive disease-free survival (IDFS) were determined. Among the 467 patients, 327 cases were classified into the low-BPE group, whereas 140 cases were classified into the high-BPE group. The high-BPE pattern markedly correlated with age at diagnosis, menopausal status, histologic grading, and estrogen receptor status. BPE pattern did not correlate with OS and IDFS in the entire breast cancer cohort, regardless of whether adjuvant chemotherapy was received. Notably, BPE in the healthy contralateral breast on MRI is markedly related to OS and IDFS in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cases who received chemotherapy. High BPE is related to chemotherapeutic benefits and can be an independent favorable prognostic factor for TNBC patients. Thus, our observations suggest that high BPE pattern can potentially be used as an imaging biomarker for relatively favorable prognosis in TNBC cases receiving chemotherapy. However, the findings need to be verified in a large-scale study.