Quantitative MRI Assessment of Breast Cancer Therapy Response

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: I. To investigate, compared to tumor size measurement, if functional MRI biomarkers or combination of a set of functional biomarkers provide earlier prediction of responders vs. non-responders with pathological analyses of surgical specimens as the endpoints. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. To investigate, compared to tumor size measurement, which MRI functional biomarker or combination of a set of biomarkers provides: Ia. A more accurate assessment of residual cancer burden with pathological analyses of surgical specimens as the endpoints. Ib. A more accurate prognosis of five-year recurrence-free survival. II. To validate that the Shutter-Speed dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI method, which measures tumor blood flow and vessel wall leakiness, as well as tumor metabolic activity, and was developed by OHSU investigators on the Siemens scanner platform, is a robust method for prediction and evaluation of breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy across major MRI scanner platforms (Siemens, Philips, and General Electric). OUTLINE: Patients undergo dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI (for measuring tumor blood vessel changes) and diffusion-weighted (DW)-MRI (for measuring tumor cell density changes) together with some standard anatomic MRI scans for about 45 minutes at baseline, after first treatment cycle, at mid-point of treatment course, and after completion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.