Metabolic intralesional heterogeneity: A valuable and straight forward metabolic parameter in carcinoma breast

Intralesional heterogeneity in breast cancer refers to the differences in tumor cell characteristics found within a single tumor mass. This heterogeneity plays several critical roles, including influencing tumor evolution, contributing to treatment resistance, impacting prognostic assessments, aiding in biomarker discovery, affecting imaging techniques, and shaping interactions within the tumor microenvironment, which in turn informs therapeutic strategies. Breast carcinoma is classified into molecular types based on receptor expression, including Luminal A, Luminal B, HER2-enriched, and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Therefore, this study aims to assess intralesional metabolic heterogeneity across different molecular types of breast cancer, which is essential for enhancing treatment outcomes and advancing personalized medicine strategies. A higher Intralesional metabolic heterogenicity index on FDG PET/CT is observed in triple receptor negative breast cancer. This index can serve as a prognostic tool aiding further patient management