Peritumoral Radiomic Deviation on DCE-MRI Exceeds the Bilateral Normal-Appearing Parenchymal Distance in Breast Cancer: A Within-Patient Multi-Metric Study
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Information Systems Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli 41001, Türkiye
- 2Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul Okan University, İstanbul 34959, Türkiye
- 3Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul Okan University, İstanbul 34959, Türkiye
- 4Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli 41001, Türkiye
- 5Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Faculty of Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli 41001, Türkiye
- 6KOU Teknopark, EVSTEK Bilişim Teknolojileri A.Ş., Kocaeli 41275, Türkiye
Abstract
Background: The imaging-defined peritumoral region may contain quantitative imaging information beyond that captured by the tumor core, but its radiomic deviation from normal-appearing breast parenchyma remains insufficiently characterized. This retrospective single-center study investigated whether peritumoral-to-normal radiomic distances exceed the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal reference distance. Fifty-six patients with histopathologically confirmed breast cancer and preoperative bilateral dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI were included. Methods: Single-slice radiomic analysis was performed for four predefined regions: tumor core (T), peritumoral microenvironment (M), remote ipsilateral normal-appearing parenchyma (I), and contralateral normal-appearing parenchyma (C). After quality control, 101 radiomic features were standardized and analyzed using standardized Euclidean, Manhattan, cosine, and Ledoit–Wolf Mahalanobis distances. Peritumoral-to-ipsilateral (dMI) and peritumoral-to-contralateral (dMC) distances were compared with the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal distance (dIC). Results: Across all four metrics, both dMI and dMC exceeded dIC, and all eight primary paired Wilcoxon comparisons remained significant after Benjamini–Hochberg correction (q≤1.07×10−6), with matched-pairs rank-biserial correlations ranging from 0.749 to 0.989. The principal pattern was broadly preserved across alternative Mahalanobis covariance formulations, reduced-dimensional PCA analyses, particularly when three or four principal components were retained, exclusion of all 13 retained shape features, separate radiomic feature-family analyses, and replacement of selected non-normalized non-uniformity features with normalized counterparts. Conclusions: These findings show that, in the present cohort, peritumoral-to-normal radiomic distances exceeded the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal reference distance. Because the four analyzed regions differed in size, shape, and sampling geometry, the reported distances should be interpreted as region-level radiomic differences under the present ROI definitions rather than as geometry-independent tissue properties. Larger multi-institutional studies using full-volume three-dimensional radiomics and standardized imaging and preprocessing strategies are needed to assess reproducibility, clarify the biological correlates of this radiomic pattern, and evaluate its potential clinical relevance.
Related
- An Acute Peripheral‐Appearing Vestibular Syndrome Followed by Probable Vestibular Migraine: A Case Report
- A Rare Case of Benign-Appearing Myoepithelial Carcinoma of the Hard Palate in an Adolescent
- Boundary-aware multi-scale residual learning with hybrid radiomic–deep fusion for lung tumor segmentation and classification
- Extensive Parenchymal Brain Calcification in a Patient With Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease and Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease
- Magnetic resonance imaging-based radiomics for predicting P53-mutated hepatocellular carcinoma: intratumoral and peritumoral analysis
BibTeX
@article{kilimci2026peritumoral,
title = {{Peritumoral Radiomic Deviation on DCE-MRI Exceeds the Bilateral Normal-Appearing Parenchymal Distance in Breast Cancer: A Within-Patient Multi-Metric Study}},
author = {Zeynep Hilal Kilimci and Demet Doğan and Kağan Gökçe and Özgür Çakır and Oğuzhan Urhan},
journal = {Cancers},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/cancers18203347},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/18/20/3347},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Peritumoral Radiomic Deviation on DCE-MRI Exceeds the Bilateral Normal-Appearing Parenchymal Distance in Breast Cancer: A Within-Patient Multi-Metric Study
AU - Zeynep Hilal Kilimci
AU - Demet Doğan
AU - Kağan Gökçe
AU - Özgür Çakır
AU - Oğuzhan Urhan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Cancers
DO - 10.3390/cancers18203347
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/18/20/3347
AB - Background: The imaging-defined peritumoral region may contain quantitative imaging information beyond that captured by the tumor core, but its radiomic deviation from normal-appearing breast parenchyma remains insufficiently characterized. This retrospective single-center study investigated whether peritumoral-to-normal radiomic distances exceed the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal reference distance. Fifty-six patients with histopathologically confirmed breast cancer and preoperative bilateral dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI were included. Methods: Single-slice radiomic analysis was performed for four predefined regions: tumor core (T), peritumoral microenvironment (M), remote ipsilateral normal-appearing parenchyma (I), and contralateral normal-appearing parenchyma (C). After quality control, 101 radiomic features were standardized and analyzed using standardized Euclidean, Manhattan, cosine, and Ledoit–Wolf Mahalanobis distances. Peritumoral-to-ipsilateral (dMI) and peritumoral-to-contralateral (dMC) distances were compared with the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal distance (dIC). Results: Across all four metrics, both dMI and dMC exceeded dIC, and all eight primary paired Wilcoxon comparisons remained significant after Benjamini–Hochberg correction (q≤1.07×10−6), with matched-pairs rank-biserial correlations ranging from 0.749 to 0.989. The principal pattern was broadly preserved across alternative Mahalanobis covariance formulations, reduced-dimensional PCA analyses, particularly when three or four principal components were retained, exclusion of all 13 retained shape features, separate radiomic feature-family analyses, and replacement of selected non-normalized non-uniformity features with normalized counterparts. Conclusions: These findings show that, in the present cohort, peritumoral-to-normal radiomic distances exceeded the within-patient bilateral normal-appearing parenchymal reference distance. Because the four analyzed regions differed in size, shape, and sampling geometry, the reported distances should be interpreted as region-level radiomic differences under the present ROI definitions rather than as geometry-independent tissue properties. Larger multi-institutional studies using full-volume three-dimensional radiomics and standardized imaging and preprocessing strategies are needed to assess reproducibility, clarify the biological correlates of this radiomic pattern, and evaluate its potential clinical relevance.
SN - 2072-6694
ER -