Three electrode arrangements for the use of contralateral body segments as controls for electrical bio-impedance measurements in three medical conditions

Abstract

Some medical and physiological conditions like diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), fractures, skin cancer, as well as higher physical lateral development of one side of the body in sports like soccer, have an unilateral presentation and frequently in one of the limbs. Electrical bio-impedance (EBI) can be useful in the diagnosis or follow up of some of these conditions and, in some cases, the unaffected extremity could serve as a control. Nevertheless, functional laterality can affect symmetry and this fact has to be taken into consideration. Four different approaches for EBI measurements are proposed in order to apply them in the above-mentioned conditions: whole body (WB), large segments (LS), small segments (SS) and a rosette array (RS). WB and LS may be useful for the assessment of soccer players as well as DFU; SS is meant to be applied to the study of fractures and, finally, the RS array can be helpful in the study of skin lesions and the risk of developing DFU. These different arrangements are presented with a nomenclature to be used with each of them. In this particular case, all measurements show lateral asymmetry, values being higher on the left side for WB, LS and SS, while the opposite applies for the majority of the RS readings. All comparisons between both sides show that the differences in LS and SS measurements are statistically significant (P value <<0.05 for WB), as well as for the RS measurements. However, in the latter case, for one group of readings, the P value was just 0.0490.