Diagnostic Potential of Targeted Electrical Impedance Scanning in Classifying Suspicious Breast Lesions

Wersebe A, Siegmann K, Krainick U, et al. Diagnostic potential of targeted electrical impedance scanning in classifying suspicious breast lesions. Invest Radiol 2002;37:65–72. rationale and objective. To evaluate the potential of targeted electrical impedance scanning (EIS) for classifying suspicious breast lesions. methods. EIS was performed in full knowledge of mammographic findings and findings of clinical breast examination. One hundred seventeen patients with a total of 129 breast lesions were examined with EIS before breast biopsy (surgical excision or vacuum core biopsy). Diagnostic indexes of targeted EIS were calculated depending on major lesion characteristics. Capacitance and conductivity of all positive spots (S) and the surrounding normal breast tissue (NBT) were quantified using ROI measurements. The ratio S/NBT was calculated to compare true positive (n = 44) and false positive (n = 18) spots. results. With respect to histology, of the 129 lesions 71 were malignant and 58 lesions were benign. Overall sensitivity of targeted EIS was 62%, specificity 69%, PPV 71%, and NPV 60%. Sensitivity of EIS varied depending on the tumor size, which was between 48% (> 20 mm) and 71% (11–20 mm). Highest specificity (86%) was observed for large lesions (> 20 mm); however, the NPV was only 35% for lesions of that size. NPV was higher for nonpalpable lesions (74%) and clusters of microcalcifications (85.7%) compared with palpable lesions (39%) and solid lesions (44%). There was no statistical difference of S/NBT ratio neither for conductivity nor capacitance of true and false positive spots. Compared with true positive spots a trend of a higher conductivity ratio at 100 Hz and 200 Hz was seen for false positive spots. conclusion. EIS showed mediocre overall diagnostic accuracy for classifying suspicious breast lesions. Quantitative analysis of positive EIS findings did not help to differentiate between false and true positive spots.

[1]  H. Fricke,et al.  The Electric Capacity of Tumors of the Breast , 1926 .

[2]  K. Foster,et al.  The UHF and microwave dielectric properties of normal and tumour tissues: variation in dielectric properties with tissue water content. , 1980, Physics in medicine and biology.

[3]  R. Anderson,et al.  On Electrical Impedance Scanning - Principles and Simulations , 2000 .

[4]  J Jossinet,et al.  The impedivity of freshly excised human breast tissue , 1998, Physiological measurement.

[5]  R. Anderson,et al.  Differentiation of mammographically suspicious lesions: evaluation of breast ultrasound, MRI mammography and electrical impedance scanning as adjunctive technologies in breast cancer detection. , 2001, Clinical radiology.

[6]  S. S. Chaudhary,et al.  Dielectric properties of normal & malignant human breast tissues at radiowave & microwave frequencies. , 1984, Indian journal of biochemistry & biophysics.

[7]  Volker Barth,et al.  Electropotential measurements as a new diagnostic modality for breast cancer , 1998, The Lancet.

[8]  M Melloul,et al.  Double-phase 99mTc-sestamibi scintimammography and trans-scan in diagnosing breast cancer. , 1999, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[9]  E. Frei,et al.  Breast cancer screening by impedance measurements. , 1990, Frontiers of medical and biological engineering : the international journal of the Japan Society of Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering.

[10]  R Holland,et al.  Electropotential evaluation as a new technique for diagnosing breast lesions. , 1997, European journal of radiology.

[11]  L. Liberman,et al.  Breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS). , 2002, Radiologic clinics of North America.

[12]  T. Boehm,et al.  Electrical impedance scanning for classifying suspicious breast lesions: first results , 2000, European Radiology.

[13]  Andrew A. Marino,et al.  Association between cell membrane potential and breast cancer. , 1994, Tumour biology : the journal of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine.

[14]  H. Sittek,et al.  Electrical impedance measurement of the breast: effect of hormonal changes associated with the menstrual cycle , 2000, European Radiology.

[15]  Stuchly,et al.  Dielectric properties of breast carcinoma and the surrounding tissues , 1988, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[16]  R. Davies,et al.  Epithelial impedance analysis in experimentally induced colon cancer. , 1987, Biophysical journal.