Affiliations: [a]
Graduate Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
| [b]
Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taipei City Hospital RenAi Branch, Taipei, Taiwan
| [c]
Department of Surgery, Taipei City Hospital RenAi Branch, Taipei, Taiwan
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Hsin Hsiu, PhD., No. 43, Section 4, Keelung Road,
Graduate Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science
and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 22730 3730; Fax: +886 2 2730 3733;
E-mail: hhsiu@mail.ntust.edu.tw.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:There is an urgent need to improve the early diagnosis of breast cancer. OBJECTIVE:The present study applied spectral and beat-to-beat analyses to laser-Doppler (LDF) data sequences measured on the skin surface on the back of the right hands, with the aim of comparing the different peripheral microcirculatory-blood-flow (MBF) perfusion condition between breast-cancer and control subjects. METHODS:ECG and LDF signals were obtained simultaneously and noninvasively from 23 breast-cancer patients and 23 age-matched control subjects. Time-domain beat-to-beat indexes and their variability parameters were calculated. Spectral indexes were calculated using the Morlet wavelet transform. RESULTS:The beat-to-beat LDF pulse width and its variability were significantly smaller in cancer patients than in the controls. The energy contributions of endothelial-, neural-, and myogenic-related frequency bands were also significantly smaller in cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS:The present study has revealed significant differences in the beat-to-beat and spectral indexes of skin-surface-acquired LDF signals between control subjects and breast-cancer patients. This illustrates that LDF indexes may be useful for monitoring the changes in the MBF perfusion condition induced by breast cancer. Since the breast-cancer patients were at TNM stages 0– 2, the present findings may aid the development of indexes for detecting breast cancer.
Keywords: Breast cancer, laser Doppler, beat-to-beat, spectral analysis, noninvasive
