Table 2.
Studies attributes of the 10 included studies exploring EIS based techniques for melanoma diagnosis.
| Reference | Study design | Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria | Sample size (person/lesion) | Age (years) | Gender | Technique | Diagnose based on | Experience in practice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skin electrical measurements | |||||||||
| (56) | Multicentre | Age ≥ 18 years Primary lesions with a suspicion of melanoma scheduled for excision. | (1) Lesions on the sole, palm, under finger and toenails (2) Lesions <2 mm in size (3) Lesions in scars, in beard or mustache |
Training set: NA/285 Test set: 183/210 |
≥18 | M/F | EIS using classification algorithm | HIST | Expert |
| (57) | Multicentre, prospective, non-controlled, non-randomized clinical trial | Same as (56)Maximum eight lesions per patient | (1) Lesions under finger and toenails, in scars or striae (2) Lesions in sites where the electrode could not reach (3) Lesions with abnormal reference areas (4) Crusted lesions |
979/1116 | ≥18 | M/F | EIS using classification algorithm | DERMPAT | Expert |
| (58) | Multicentre, prospective and blinded study | All lesions selected for total excision | Same as (57) | 1611/1943 | Median 48 (range 18–91) | M/F | EIS | HIST | N/A |
| (59) | Retrospective descriptive study | Age ≥ 18 with atypical melanocytic lesions | Same as (57) | 19/22 | Median 53 (range 23–69) | M/F | EIS with ST-SDD | HIST + DERM | N/A |
| (60) | Observational, prospective, multicentre study | Suspicious melanocytic lesion eligible for short-term sequential digital dermoscopy imaging (SDDI) | Same as (57) | 112/160 | Median 46 range (23–82) | M/F | EIS paired with SDDI | HIST + DERM | N/A |
| (61) | Initial evaluation study | N/A | N/A | 24/154 | N/A | N/A | EIS | N/A | N/A |
| (62) | Post-hoc analysis for retrospective study | Patients of (58) with melanoma lesions | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | EIS + DERM | HIST | N/A |
| (63) | Online survey for trainees | N/A | N/A | -/45 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| (64) | Clinical pilot study | Age ≥ 18 years with suspicious skin lesions. Lesions must be accessible to the probe. | (1) Other skin diseases in the same/nearby localization (2) Pregnancy (3) Breastfeeding. |
51/59 | ≥18 | M/F | Parelectric spectroscopy | HIST | N/A |
| (65) | Multitiered study | Clinically suspicious lesions from a previous trial | N/A | -/43 | N/A | N/A | EIS | HIST | N/A |
The summarized attributes are: (i) study design, (ii) inclusion and exclusion criteria, (iii) sample size (in terms of person/lesion reported), (iv) age of the included population, (v) gender, (vi) technique exploited, (vii) on what the diagnose is based on (e.g., histopathology (HIST), dermoscopy (DERM), pathology (PAT) or Dermatopathology (DERMPAT)), and (viii) experience in practice of operators. N/A, Not Applicable. Yellow rows represent the studies included in the QUADAS analysis (i.e., studies where the specific technique was implemented as a diagnostic tool). Technique: EIS (skin electrical impedance measurements tomography) and DERM (dermoscopy).