Metabolic Sodium MRI to Assess Early Response of Breast Cancer to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) is administered to treat invasive breast cancer before surgery. It offers the opportunity to evaluate tumor response to treatment in aggressive disease, and guide additional therapies for patients with inadequate response, if detected early. Investigators propose to develop a sodium breast MRI technique that will allow to assess the early metabolic response of breast cancer to NACT, occurring before late structural changes can be detected with standard MRI. This study will scan 12 patients using 1H/23Na MRI at 7 T and DCE MRI with triple-negative breast cancer undergoing AC-T therapy (2 months of Adriamycin + Cyclophosphamide, then 3 months of Taxol): at baseline (pre-NACT); after the first AC cycle (2 weeks); after AC treatment (2 months); after complete NACT (5 months, pre-surgery).