Electrode Structure Optimum for Impedance Measurement of Intraoperative Breast Cancer Focus

The impedance measuring method may be used to assess the margin of breast cancer focus in the process of operation. This rapid measurement can shorten the waiting time and lighten patients’ pain in partial mastectomy. In order to satisfy the requirements of margin assessment, the design of electrodes structure is studied in this paper. Through simulation analyses on three types of the electrode structure, namely, strip-shaped electrode, square-shaped electrode and arc-shaped electrode, it is found that the arc-shaped electrode has better performances. The result of tissue experiments shows that the imaginary part of the impedance has more powerful character distinguishing ability.

1. Introduction

Breast cancer is a frequently encountered malignancy in women. Especially in recent years, Breast cancer incidence rates increased rapidly [1]–[3]. Along with the progress of modern medicine, surgical treatment has made significant changes. Now partial mastectomy is more advocated[4], which is trying to resect the tumor and 1 cm thick breast tissue surrounding. In order to choose suitable treatment program, the pathological diagnosis is used to clarify the type and characteristics of the focus and diagnose whether the tumor is resected cleanly. At present, the pathological section is a major diagnosis method, which is in-vitro. The quick frozen biopsy in surgery is the most commonly method used in hospital now[5], but it also requires a long time. In order to shorten the waiting time and lighten patients' pain in partial mastectomy, it is necessary to research a new method which can quickly and efficiently determine the edge of tumors in surgery.