BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES The aim of this study was to develop morphological analytic methods to analyze the tumor-fat interface and in different peritumoral shells away from the tumor, and to compare the results among three molecular subtypes of breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 102 women (mean age 48.5 y/o) with solitary well-defined breast cancers were analyzed, including 46 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) (+), 46 HER2(-) hormonal receptor (HR) (+), and 10 triple negative (TN) breast cancers. The tumor lesion, the breast, the fibroglandular and fatty tissue were segmented using well-established methods. The whole breast fat percentage and the peri-tumor interface fat percentage were measured. Three shells (SH1, SH2, SH3) surrounding the convex hall of the three dimensional (3D) tumor were defined and in each shell the volumetric percentage of fat was calculated. The peri-tumor interface fat percentage and the volumetric percentage of fat in the three peri-tumoral shells were compared among different subtypes. RESULTS In the TN group, the fat percentage on the tumor boundary was 43 ± 20% and 78 ± 12% for two dimensional (2D) and 3D measurement, respectively, which were the highest among the three subtypes but not significantly different. The fat percentage in SH2 and SH3 in the TN group was 82 ± 7% and 85 ± 7%, which was significantly higher compared to the two other two subtypes. The results remained after controlling for the whole breast fat percentage. CONCLUSIONS This study provided a feasible method for quantitative analysis of peri-tumoral tissue characteristics. Because of small patient number, the finding that TN tumors had the highest peri-tumor fat content among the three subtypes needs to be further verified with a large cohort study.

中文翻译：

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乳腺癌不同分子亚型中肿瘤周围脂肪的定量分析。

背景与目的本研究的目的是开发一种形态学分析方法，以分析肿瘤-脂肪界面以及远离肿瘤的不同瘤周壳中的脂肪-脂肪界面，并比较三种乳腺癌亚型的结果。材料与方法总共分析了102位女性（平均年龄48.5岁），这些女性患有明确的孤立性乳腺癌，其中包括46种人表皮生长因子受体2（HER2）（+），46种HER2（-）激素受体（HR） ）和10种三阴性（TN）乳腺癌。使用公认的方法对肿瘤病变，乳房，纤维腺和脂肪组织进行分割。测量了整个乳房的脂肪百分比和肿瘤周围界面的脂肪百分比。三个壳（SH1，SH2，定义了三维（3D）肿瘤凸大厅周围的SH3），并在每个壳中计算了脂肪的体积百分比。在不同亚型之间比较了三个肿瘤周壳中的肿瘤周界面脂肪百分比和脂肪体积百分比。结果在TN组中，二维（2D）和3D测量的肿瘤边界上的脂肪百分比分别为43±20％和78±12％，在三种亚型中最高，但无显着差异。TN组的SH2和SH3中的脂肪百分比分别为82±7％和85±7％，与其他两个亚型相比明显更高。控制整个乳房脂肪百分比后，结果仍然存在。结论本研究为肿瘤周围组织特征的定量分析提供了一种可行的方法。由于患者人数少，因此在三个亚型中TN肿瘤具有最高的肿瘤周围脂肪含量的发现需要进一步的大规模队列研究进一步证实。