TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bounias, Dimitrios
AU  - Führes, Tobit
AU  - Brock, Luise
AU  - Graber, Johanna
AU  - Kapsner, Lorenz A
AU  - Liebert, Andrzej
AU  - Schreiter, Hannes
AU  - Eberle, Jessica
AU  - Hadler, Dominique
AU  - Skwierawska, Dominika
AU  - Floca, Ralf Omar
AU  - Neher, Peter
AU  - Kovacs, Balint
AU  - Wenkel, Evelyn
AU  - Ohlmeyer, Sabine
AU  - Uder, Michael
AU  - Maier-Hein, Klaus
AU  - Bickelhaupt, Sebastian
TI  - AI-Based screening for thoracic aortic aneurysms in routine breast MRI.
JO  - Nature Communications
VL  - 16
IS  - 1
SN  - 2041-1723
CY  - [London]
PB  - Springer Nature
M1  - DKFZ-2025-01210
SP  - 5299
PY  - 2025
N1  - #EA:E230#
AB  - Prognosis for thoracic aortic aneurysms is significantly worse for women than men, with a higher mortality rate observed among female patients. The increasing use of magnetic resonance breast imaging (MRI) offers a unique opportunity for simultaneous detection of both breast cancer and thoracic aortic aneurysms. We retrospectively validate a fully-automated artificial neural network (ANN) pipeline on 5057 breast MRI examinations from public (Duke University Hospital/EA1141 trial) and in-house (Erlangen University Hospital) data. The ANN, benchmarked against 3D-ground-truth segmentations, clinical reports, and a multireader panel, demonstrates high technical robustness (dice/clDice 0.88-0.91/0.97-0.99) across different vendors and field strengths. The ANN improves aneurysm detection rates by 3.5-fold compared with routine clinical readings, highlighting its potential to improve early diagnosis and patient outcomes. Notably, a higher odds ratio (OR = 2.29, CI: [0.55,9.61]) for thoracic aortic aneurysms is observed in women with breast cancer or breast cancer history, suggesting potential further benefits from integrated simultaneous assessment for cancer and aortic aneurysms.
KW  - Humans
KW  - Female
KW  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: methods
KW  - Aortic Aneurysm, Thoracic: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Aortic Aneurysm, Thoracic: diagnosis
KW  - Breast Neoplasms: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Middle Aged
KW  - Neural Networks, Computer
KW  - Retrospective Studies
KW  - Breast: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Aged
KW  - Male
KW  - Mass Screening: methods
KW  - Adult
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:40506431
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41467-025-59694-2
UR  - https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/302012
ER  -