Multivariate analysis of the scattering profiles of healthy and pathological human breast tissues

Scattering profiles of 106 healthy and pathological human breast samples were obtained using the angular dispersive X-ray scattering technique (AD-XRD) and synchrotron radiation covering the momentum transfer interval of 0.7 nm−1≤q(=4π sin(θ/2)/λ)≤70.5 nm−1. Multivariate analysis in the form of discriminant analysis was applied over the whole scattering profile curve of each sample in order to build a model for breast tissue classification. The classification results were validated and compared with histological sample classification obtained by microscopy analysis. Finally, the model allows classifying correctly 91.5% of the samples and presented values of 98.5%, 89.7% and 0.90 for sensitivity, specificity and Cohen’s κ, respectively, in correctly differentiating between healthy and pathological tissues.