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// Xue-Ying Hu 1,* , Ying Li 1,* , Guan-Qiao Jin 1 , Shao-Lv Lai 1 , Xiang-Yang Huang 1 and Dan-Ke Su 1 1 Department of Radiology, Guangxi Medical University Affiliated Cancer Hospital, Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China * Authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Dan-Ke Su, email: // Keywords : MRI, apparent diffusion coefficient, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, breast cancer Received : February 06, 2017 Accepted : June 18, 2017 Published : July 05, 2017 Abstract This study aims to evaluate the potential of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) derived from diffusion-weighted MR imaging for predicting the treatment response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in patients with breast cancer. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed prior to NACT and after two cycles of NACT. The correlation between mean ADC pre values, mean ADC post values, changes in ADC values and changes in tumor diameters after NACT was examined using Spearman rank correlation. A total of 164 breast cancers were enrolled in this study. Mean ADC pre values of responders ([0.85 ± 0.16] × 10 -3 mm 2 /s) and non-responders ([0.84 ± 0.21] × 10 -3 mm 2 /s) had no significant difference ( P = 0.759). While mean ADC post value of responders was significantly higher than that of non-responders ([1.17 ± 0.37] × 10 -3 mm 2 /s vs. [1.01 ± 0.28] × 10 -3 mm 2 /s; P = 0.002). Both mean ADC post values (r = 0.288, P = 0.000) and changes in mean ADC values (r = 0.222, P = 0.004) were positively correlated to changes in tumor diameter after NACT, except for mean ADC pre values (r = 0.031, P = 0.695). Our results indicated that mean ADC post values and changes in ADC values after NACT might be a biological marker for assessing the efficacy of chemotherapy.