title: Development of array piezoelectric fingers towards in vivo breast tumor detection.
abstract: We have investigated the development of a handheld 4 × 1 piezoelectric finger (PEF) array breast tumor detector system towards in vivo patient testing, particularly, on how the duration of the DC applied voltage, the depression depth of the handheld unit, and breast density affect the PEF detection sensitivity on 40 patients. The tests were blinded and carried out in four phases: with DC voltage durations 5, 3, 2, to 0.8 s corresponding to scanning a quadrant, a half, a whole breast, and both breasts within 30 min, respectively. The results showed that PEF detection sensitivity was unaffected by shortening the applied voltage duration from 5 to 0.8 s nor was it affected by increasing the depression depth from 2 to 6 mm. Over the 40 patients, PEF detected 46 of the 48 lesions (46/48)-with the smallest lesion detected being 5 mm in size. Of 28 patients (some have more than one lesion) with mammography records, PEF detected 31/33 of all lesions (94%) and 14/15 of malignant lesions (93%), while mammography detected 30/33 of all lesions (91%) and 12/15 of malignant lesions (80%), indicating that PEF could detect malignant lesions not detectable by mammography without significantly increasing false positives. PEF's detection sensitivity is also shown to be independent of breast density, suggesting that PEF could be a potential tool for detecting breast cancer in young women and women with dense breasts.
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Youngsoo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Ari D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Wei-Heng
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Shih
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Wan Y
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Shih
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010173:Palpation / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*