Engineering Biomedical Problems to Detect Carcinomas: A Tomographic Impedance Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Using EIT to the diagnosis of human body’s pathological changes has been studied for decades, such as action way, current/voltage excitation and measurement methods, diagnosis principles, visualization with limited imaging quality, and the timely response of tissues and lesions. However, the authors have not involved and compared with these existing works, and thus these results and findings are surely state-of-the-art.

In a positive sense, the authors may be able to discover some useful rules that are usually not found in small sample sizes through specific constructions and the statistical laws of excitation and response through FEM analysis, after sufficient accumulation. However, the proposed research result is not based on big data, so the present conclusion is not general. In addition, the focus of the epithelial tissue perhaps by gives researchers a new perspective, and I believe that this research direction can be expanded and encouraged.

The derivation of Eq. (19) is somewhat abrupt, and I cannot understand its basis such as the mentioned “mixture theory”. what is it, and fail to give the related reference.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

minor revsion and edits

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this study, the authors have proposed a novel technique to detect carcinomas titled "Engineering biomedical problems to detect carcinomas: A Tomographic Impedance Approach". The authors reported the simulation results with an 8-electrode Electrical Impedance Tomography system that can detect carcinoma by analyzing the electrical impedance response. Also, the organization of the paper is good. I recommend a revision of this manuscript with special attention to the following:

1. The introduction section does not sufficiently analyze the existing literature and research on the specific issues. Related references should be cited to clarify.

2. The method section should be improved in more detail. The authors should present the simulation model with electrode positions in detail.

3. The results should be improved with more evaluation indexes. The figures are not presented well; please improve the resolution and explain them in context to improve the results.

4. In the abstract and the results sections, the authors mention that this study “determined the optimal excitation current values tailored to the type of tissue under examination.” However, the manuscript does not show or analyze this "optimal" information.

5. The authors should show the improvement and the novel points from the previous publication (doi: 10.1109/EHB55594.2022.9991328).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thankful for the authors for carefully responding to the previous review comments. Both the quality and readability of the mc have been improved. Overall, these works serve as constructive and helpful for detecting carcinogenomas through a tomographic impedance way.

Although I am not entirely satisfied the current mc, considering the timeliness of the research content in the article, I suggest making the following minor revisions for publication;

1) Eq. (19) is suggested to be written as an equation with a proportional coefficient added.

2) The horizontal and vertical axes in Figs 4-9, 12, and 13 need to represent the corresponding variables and provide explanations for the coordinate axes; The two curves in Figure 9 correspond to a text label box that needs to be added to explain the curve; The same applies to Figures 10 and 11 as well.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing is needed.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have adjusted the structure and added information in the revised manuscript, making the content clearer and easier to understand. Before publication, I suggest a few revisions and clarifications:

1. In the result section, figures such as Fig. 7, Fig. 12, and Fig. 13 should be fixed with clear captions and explanations. The caption location in Fig. 11 and Fig. 13 should be edited. The index numbers of the color scale in all images are too small.

2. The contact impedance between the electrodes and the skin is essential. What do the authors think about this factor in the proposed method?

3. In the introduction and conclusion sections, the authors mention the "optimal value for current," but in the experimental setup, they only discuss changing the applied voltage. In Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), using voltage sources and current sources is fundamentally different, and the authors need to clarify this issue.

4. In EIT, the current injection strategy injects current at adjacent or opposite electrode pairs. The authors should replace all the terms “adjacent potentials method” with “adjacent strategy” for appropriation in the EIT context.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf