A feasibility study on the delectability of edema using magnetic induction tomography using an analytical model

Abstract

Magnetic induction tomography (MIT) is a low frequency electromagnetic modality, which aims to reconstruct the conductivity changes from coupled field measurements taken by inductive sensors. MIT is a subject of research for medical clinical applications where several reports have shown low conductivity tissue structures can be detected. The aim of this paper is to analyze the sensitivity of a single MIT channel to the central edematous region in a simplified head model. A multilayer model was used, which comprises concentric shells representing scalp, skull, cerebral spinal fluid, gray matter and white matter. An analytical solution of the electromagnetic field problem is presented and validated against numerical COMSOL (a FE commercial package) model. The size of the edema region is progressively increased and the relative sensitivity of the MIT channel is presented. The detectability of the edema with regard noise limitations of MIT systems is analyzed. Using outer boundary information in the inverse problem as a priori condition could improve solution stability. The effect of the resolution of the shape scanner's on measuring the boundary of the target on the MIT measurements is examined. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.