Emerging Horizons in Cancer Monitoring: Electrical Impedance Tomography as a Cost-Effective Noninvasive Imaging and Diagnostics System.

Cancer is a serious worldwide health issue. Routinary detection exams are recommended
for better prognosis, however there are still no suitable routinary procedures. Electrical
Impedance Tomography is a non-invasive, portable, low-cost novel imaging technology.
Its side effects are reversible heat discomfort and/or uncomfortable electrostimulation.
By measuring the dielectric properties of a region of interest, it makes possible to detect
and monitor cancer. Software such as EIDORS and COMSOL are used nowadays to solve
the forward and inverse problem. However, the state-of-the-art image reconstruction
solutions are based on deep learning and this ongoing research has boosted the accuracy
of EIT in a substantial manner. With such accuracy improvement, this technique has been
utilized for breast cancer detection. The successful results for breast cancer encouraged
researchers to explore its usage in other cancer types such as lung, skin, prostate, tongue
and gynaecological. Results reaffirm that EIT holds great potential to be used in clinical
cancer diagnostic scenarios and thus, more exhaustive research of EIT-based cancer
imaging is highly recommended. This review offers an overview of the main elements
that EIT technology comprises. Detailed explanation is provided for safety parameters
and possible adverse effects. A comprehensive overview of deep tomographic image
reconstruction in EIT is provided. Finally, an updated literature revision for EIT usage in
the oncological area is presented.