Development of Multi-frequency Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) System for Early Detection of Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer is among the top five causes of cancer death and the topmost cause among women worldwide. The early diagnosis through simple, non-invasive and inexpensive screening can provide great deal of aids. Multi-frequency Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is quite attractive in this context as the instrumentation is relatively simple and research has demonstrated application in breast cancer screening. Considering the socio-economic status of developing countries like Bangladesh, a low cost reliable system is required that could be maintained and repaired by locally trained manpower. However limitation of local availability of even quite basic electronic component is another challenge. This paper focuses on the design and construction of multi-frequency EIS system using readily available and inexpensive circuit elements so that biomedical engineers from developing countries can maintain the instrumentation easily. In this research work, multifrequency EIS system has been designed and to avoid complexity of the design of EIS the four electrode system is constructed using function generator, enhanced howland voltage to current converter, Instrumentation amplifier, EIS automatic switching using microcontroller (ATmega8) and Butterworth bandpass filter. Measurements on resistive, reactive and oval shaped phantoms give a resolution that would allow impedance changes reported in clinical studies (e.g., epithelial tissue characterization, abdominal fat thickness, early breast cancer screening) to be measured with our proposed simple, non-invasive EIS system.