Probability analysis of axillary lymph node metastasis in breast cancer patients using particle space-time distribution model

Healthcare Technology Letters

article

Fang Chen¹  Jia Liu²  Xinran Zhang²  Hongen Liao² 

[1] Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIIT Key Laboratory of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence;Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University

关键词: tumours;    probability;    cancer;    biomedical ultrasonics;    biological organs;    gynaecology;    medical image processing;    axillary lymph node metastasis differs;    different breast cancer patients;    axillary ultrasound imaging;    breast tumour;    axillary lymph node prediction;    novel particle space-time distribution model;    axillary lymphatic metastasis;    dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasonography;    space-time features;    metastasis prediction;    particle distribution information;   

DOI  :  10.1049/htl.2019.0072

学科分类：肠胃与肝脏病学

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

The possibility of axillary lymph node metastasis differs in different breast cancer patients and is the strongest prognostic indicator in breast cancer. The existing studies mainly explored the relationship of axillary ultrasound imaging and axillary lymph node metastasis, without exploring whether ultrasound imaging of breast tumour can affect and perform axillary lymph node prediction. Therefore, this Letter proposes a novel particle space-time distribution model to find the correlation between contrast-enhanced ultrasonography of breast tumour and axillary lymphatic metastasis. Starting from the imaging principle of dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, the particle space-time distribution model not only comprises space-time features of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography with an encoder–decoder network, but also the flow field information of microbubble particles is integrated into the space-time features that better serves the metastasis prediction by enhancing the particle distribution information. Extensive experiments on real patients have demonstrated that dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasonography of breast tumour can be used to predict the probability of lymphatic metastasis. This conclusion can be interpretable from the clinical and pathological perspectives.

【 授权许可】

CC BY|CC BY-ND|CC BY-NC|CC BY-NC-ND