Study of Electrical Impedance Tomography as a primary screening technique for breast cancer

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a potential adjunct modality for breast cancer screening. It is mobile and does not use ionizing radiation. It is based on the theory that cancer cells display altered local dielectric properties, thus illustrate measurably higher conductivity values. EIT was validated with mammography (MMG); ultrasound (US) and biopsy. A total of 150 symptomatic mammography patients with US breast above 40 years undergone EIT. Respondents were chosen using convenience sampling. The analysis of MMG, US and EIT were done independently by four independent radiologists with minimum of five years´ experience with BI-RADS classification for recognition of abnormalities. A total of 62 (41.3%) subjects had consistent interpretation of EIT, MMG and US whilst 88 (58.7%) subjects had coherent interpretation. Intra-rater agreement for EIT, MMG and US interpretation was good (κ≥0.7). EIT had 64.4% of sensitivity using diagnostic MMG, 70.1% of specificity, 67.1% of positive and 67.5% of negative predictive value. Specificity and positive predictive value increased to 76.3% and 80%, respectively when combination EIT, MMG and US were used. From 13 biopsy cases; 90% was proven as malignant lesions whilst 76.9% of 10 biopsy cases as benign lesions by EIT. Menopausal status and age (p>0.05) was not correlated significantly with EIT performance. EIT had 64.4% of sensitivity and is recommended to be a potential primary screening technique for detection of breast abnormality prior Breast Self Examination However MMG has to be done to confirm the diagnosis.