PowerPoint Presentation


Comparing electrical impedance spectroscopy to traditional clinical adjunctive 
tools in the detection of melanoma 

Ryan M. Svoboda, MD MS1, Abigail I. Franco, MD2, Darrell S. Rigel, MD MS3* 

Background 

Objectives      

Methods 

Results 

Limitations 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Conclusions 

1National Society for Cutaneous Medicine, New York, NY 2St. Joseph’s Hospital, Syracuse, NY 3Ronald O. Perelman Dept. of Dermatology, NYU Medical Center, New York, NY 

• Early detection of melanoma leads to improved 
outcomes 

• Despite adjuncts such as dermoscopy, clinical detection 
remains challenging 

• Electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) (Nevisense, 
SciBase AB, Stockholm, Sweden) has been shown to have 
potential as a diagnostic aid for the detection of 
melanoma 

• To compare the results of EIS to clinical detection 
algorithms in biopsy-proven melanoma lesions 

• To determine the correlation between EIS score and 
pathologic staging 

• Only biopsy-positive 
lesions were included in 
the data analysis 

• There were few 
advanced lesions 

• EIS potentially has a lower incidence of false negative results than other common 
diagnostic adjuncts in the detection of melanoma 

• There appears to be a moderate positive correlation between increasing EIS score and 
advancing tumor stage 

 

• A subset of 265 lesions from the EIS pivotal trial  (2,416 
total lesions from 22 sites in 7 countries) was analyzed, 
representing all biopsy-proven melanoma specimens in 
the sample 

• Prior to biopsy, each lesion was characterized by: 
• Clinical ABCD rule 
• ABCD rule of dermoscopy (cutoff >4.75 for +ve 

score) 
• 7-point checklist (cutoff ≥3 for +ve score) 
• Weighted 7-point checklist (cutoff ≥3 for +ve 

score) 
• EIS (cutoff ≥4 for +ve score) 

 
 

 

*Disclosures: The data for this study was supplied by SciBase, AB. No compensation was received by the authors. 

 

Tumor Stage Number of 
Lesions 

Percentage of 
Sample 

In situ 112 42.3% 

T1a 94 35.5% 

T1b 19 7.2% 

T2a 24 9.1% 

T2b 11 4.2% 

T3a 1 0.4% 

T3b 3 1.1% 

T4a 1 0.4% 

Distribution of Tumor Stage in a Sample of 265 
Biopsy-Proven Melanoma Lesions  

Technique Percentage 
of False 

Negative 
Cases 

Sensitivity for 
Detection of 
Melanoma 

p-value* 
 

Electrical 
Impedance 

Spectroscopy 

3.4% 
 

96.6% 
 

- 

Clinical ABCD 
Rule 

12.8% 87.2% 0.294 

ABCD 
Dermoscopy 

Rule 

45.8% 54.2% 0.003 
 

Seven-Point 
Checklist 

50.8% 49.2% 0.008 
 

Weighted 
Seven-Point 

Checklist 

39.3% 60.7% 0.001 

Sensitivity of Clinical Tools for the Detection of Melanoma in a 
Sample of 265 Biopsy-Proven Melanoma Lesions  

Correlation between pathologic staging and EIS score 

*Comparing sensitivity to that of EIS