title: Breast imaging using electrical impedance tomography: correlation of quantitative assessment with visual interpretation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a new non-invasive, mobile screening method which does not use ionizing radiation to the human breast; allows conducting quantitative assessment of the images besides the visual interpretation. The aim of this study was to correlate the quantitative assessment and visual interpretation of breast electrical impedance tomographs and associated factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and fifty mammography patients above 40 years and undergoing EIT were chosen using convenient sampling. Visual interpretation of the images was carried out by a radiologist with minimum of three years experience using the breast imaging - electrical impedance (BI-EIM) classification for detection of abnormalities. A set of thirty blinded EIT images were reinterpreted to determine the intra-rater reliability using kappa. Quantitative assessment was by comparison of the breast average electric conductivity with the norm and correlations with visual interpretation of the images were determined using Chi-square. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean electrical conductivity between groups and t-test was used for comparisons with pre-existing Caucasians statistics. Independent t-tests were applied to compare the mean electrical conductivity of women with factors like exogenous hormone use and family history of breast cancer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean electrical conductivity of Malaysian women was significantly lower than that of Caucasians (p<0.05). Quantitative assessment of electrical impedance tomography was significantly related with visual interpretation of images of the breast (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Quantitative assessment of electrical impedance tomography images was significantly related with visual interpretation.
authors.affiliation: Diagnostic Imaging and Radiotherapy, School of Medical Imaging, Faculty of Health Sciences, KPJ Healthcare University College, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia E-mail : kanagakkc@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Norhayati Mohd
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Zain
authors.forename: Kanaga Kumari
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Chelliah
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001940:Breast / Q000502:physiology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000517:prevention & control; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000379:methods*; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D017097:Electric Impedance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008296:Malaysia; D008327:Mammography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D014054:Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*