Electrical Impedance Scanning - A New Diagnostic Tool in Cancer Detection: Current Status and Recent Developments

Due to insufficiencies of the currently available imaging modalities in breast cancer diagnosis the development of improved technical systems has been a main field of activities in the medical engineering community for years, including thermography, laser mammography and impedance based technologies. Up to now none of these technologies reached the break-through into routine application due to several reasons. Also electrical impedance scanning being free of side effects, non invasive, cheap, and flexible to handle, is a promising diagnostic tool especially in breast cancer detection. This review aims to describe the physical background, clinical application, already useful applications, limitations and future developments.