Technical Note: A new method to rapidly identify benign and malignant breast lumps through bioelectrical impedance...

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Medical Imaging
• Biophysics

Background:

• Accurate differentiation of malignant and benign breast masses is crucial for timely and appropriate patient management.
• Traditional pathological examinations, while definitive, can be time-consuming and may not always be readily available intraoperatively.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the efficacy of Bioelectrical Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) for the rapid distinction between malignant and benign breast masses.
• To determine the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of BIS compared to histopathological analysis.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 622 breast masses from 489 patients was conducted between January 2015 and June 2017.
• Each mass was analyzed using a breast tissue bioimpedance analyzer (MScan1.0B) prior to pathological morphological examination.
• BIS results were validated against pathology findings, considered the gold standard, with sensitivity, specificity, and consistency tests performed.

Main Results:

• BIS demonstrated high sensitivity (92.4%) and specificity (96.0%) in differentiating mass types.
• The method yielded a positive likelihood ratio of 23.36 and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.0789.
• A high consistency was observed, with a kappa value of 0.794 ± 0.038.

Conclusions:

• Bioelectrical Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) is an effective, convenient, and economical tool for rapidly differentiating benign and malignant breast masses with high accuracy.
• BIS shows potential as an adjunctive method to intraoperative pathological examinations, improving diagnostic speed and efficiency.