A new method to rapid identify benign and malignant breast lumps through bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy.

Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness of Bioelectrical Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) in order to rapidly distinguish malignant vs benign breast masses. Methods A total of 622 breast masses from 489 patients were collected from January 2015 to June 2017. Every specimen was evaluated by a breast tissue bioimpedance analyzer (MScan1.0B) followed by morphological examination by pathologists. The results from BIS were compared with the morphological results from pathology (as a gold standard). The specificity and sensitivity of BIS were evaluated and the consistency test was performed. Results Compared with the pathology standard, BIS had good sensitivity (92.4%), specificity (96.0%), false positive rate (3.96%), and false negative rate (7.58%). The positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values of BIS were 23.36, 0.0789, 73.49%, 99.07%, respectively. The kappa value of BIS was 0.794 +/- 0.038 in the consistency test. Conclusion Compared with the pathology standard, the BIS is an effective, convenient, and economical detection method to quickly differentiate benign and malignant breast masses with high accuracy. It may serve as a potential supplement of intraoperative pathological examinations.