In Vivo Classification of Oral Lesions Using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate a new non-invasive, handheld Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) device for assessing oral lesions in real-life surgical scenarios.

METHODS

A custom-designed probe with a 33-electrode sensor array was used to collect impedance measurements across multiple frequencies (100 Hz - 100 kHz) from non-consecutive patients undergoing surgical resection of oral cancer. In vivo EIS measurements were recorded from lesion and healthy tissue surfaces before resection, with no clinical decisions based on impedance data.

RESULTS

The study included 26 participants (median [IQR] age, 64.3 [59 - 70] years; 11 (42%) female) with oral squamous cell carcinoma. Cancerous tissue was found to have significantly lower resistance and reactance than healthy tissue (p<0.0001). Tissue classification using the permittivity at 40 kHz showed the highest accuracy (88%) with an AUC of 0.88. Multiple impedance parameters achieved AUCs >0.85 for differentiating healthy from malignant tissue. Conclusion & Significance: The study indicates that EIS can effectively differentiate between healthy and cancerous oral mucosa through rapid, non-invasive intraoperative measurements. The data processing pipeline developed demonstrates success in maintaining high data quality amidst the external disturbances presented in intraoperative data collection.