Effectiveness of breast electrical impedance imaging for clinically suspicious breast lesions.

OBJECTIVES AND BACKGROUND: This study was designed to compare the usefulness of the breast electrical conductivity measures performed in a surgical examination room against conventional breast screening modalities for identifying the symptomatic lesions of the breast tissue.

METHODS: A group of 181 patients were examined with Ultrasonography (USG), Mammography (MG), Electrical Impedance Scanning (EIS) modalities and were followed-up 24 months to clarify in terms of the lesion tumour progression relationship. Tumour biopsy was determined as an endpoint of the study.

RESULTS: According to USG, 13 (7.2 %) lesion were suspicious, where as EIS was reported 22 (12.2 %). 2 of these 9 patients were presented as BI-RADS 4 and histopathologic result was proven as malignant disease during 6 months short-interval follow-up. EIS exhibited compatible sensitivity (81.2 %), accuracy (84.6 %) and PPV (81.8 %) rates with USG in BI-RADS 4 subgroup, combination of these modalities raised sensitivity rates to 92.31 %, accuracy and PPV to 100 %. EIS results in BI-RADS 3 subgroup were pointed out 77.8 % specificity and 87.5 % NPV rates.

CONCLUSION: Breast electrical impedance measures should be useful to reduce the number of the unnecessary follow-up and biopsy rates in the clinical setting (Tab. 2, Fig. 2, Ref. 39).