Advances in the predicting molecular subtypes of breast cancer with multimodal functional imaging

Breast cancer consists of a range of tumor subtypes with different clinical characteristics, prognosis, and treatment-response. Early and accurate prediction of molecular subtypes of breast cancer is crucial for guiding clinical treatment and improving prognosis. Medical imaging can be used to predict the molecular subtypes of breast cancer from multiple perspectives. Among the functional imaging methods, the ultrasound elastography, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance, diffusion weighted imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and positron emission computed tomography can be used to predict molecular subtypes at molecular level. In this paper, the advances in the predicting the subtypes of breast cancer with multimodal functional imaging were reviewed. (authors)