BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis of @entity0 treatment-related @entity4269 (BCRL) is of great importance for longstanding treatment results. Tissue dielectric constant (TDC) and bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) both have a potential for early diagnosis, but have not been compared. METHODS AND RESULTS: One hundred @entity1 , treated for @entity0 with breast surgery, axillary dissection, and radiotherapy, were examined within one year after @entity0 treatment, as part of the follow-up procedure. Affected/at-risk and contralateral arms were measured with the TDC technique specific to localized skin water content and the BIS technique assessing arm extracellular fluid (ECF). Thirty-eight @entity1 were clinically diagnosed for @entity4269 (38.0%). The sensitivity and specificity for the TDC method were 65.8% and 83.9%, and for BIS method 42.1% and 93.5%, (p<0.001 and NS), respectively. Of all @entity4269 , 18.4% were detected only by TDC and 2.6% by BIS. Affected arm to contralateral arm TDC ratios for upper arm and forearm, 1.56  0.49 and 1.28  0.33, demonstrating the localized feature of the TDC measurements were significantly greater than the BIS arm ratio 1.12  0.12 (both p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Discrepancies between TDC and BIS techniques in assessing @entity4269 are related to different measurement techniques and assessed tissue water components. Independently of selected technique-specific threshold limit, the TDC technique was more sensitive than the BIS technique in the early assessment of BCRL and demonstrated that nearly 20% of early @entity4269 are only superficially localized. The results further supported the complementary role of TDC and arm volume measurements as a highly diagnostic method for early @entity4269 .

Experimental and Analytical Comparisons of Tissue Dielectric Constant (TDC) and Bioimpedance Spectroscopy (BIS) in Assessment of Early Arm Lymphedema in @entity0 XXXX after Axillary Surgery and Radiotherapy.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'women'] @entity4269 :: ('MESH:D008209', 'Disease') :: ['lymphedema'] @entity0 :: ('MESH:D001943', 'Disease') :: ['breast cancer']
@entity1 :: (9606,Species) :: ['Patients']
