Electrical Impedance Tomography a Safer Scanning Modality for Premature Babies

A breakthrough in the technology of scanning organs should make it possible to scan newborns' lungs without the double dangers of radiation and the need to transport critically ill infants to scanning facilities.

The development of electrical impedance tomography (EIT) scanning, which involves passing a very small electrical current into the body and measuring the resistance, is expected to lead to the development of highly portable and much less expensive alternatives to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scanners.

Prof. Richard Bayford and Dr. Andrew Tizzard, from Middlesex University (London, UK), are part of an international team that has developed a mathematical formula to create images from scanners which do not use radiation like current methods. The mathematics required to process the data and to construct images are remarkably complex. Until now, clinicians have not had a single model to create consistent images but the research of the international team, Prof. Bayford and Dr. Tizzard has established a gold standard of how to do this for imaging the lungs.

Having set a standard approach that meets the need of clinical evaluation, others can rapidly build on this for whole body scanning. The prototypes of the EIT scanners will be evaluated in clinics within five years. Prof. Bayford, considered a world leader in EIT, concluded, "This method is potentially highly portable, cost-effective, and doesn't require the subject to hold their breath like in other imaging. After all, you can't ask a new born or indeed the unconscious to hold their breath."

The mathematical solution to building images from EIT measurements, named GREIT (the Grätz consensus reconstruction algorithm), has been recognized with the Martin Black Prize. The Prize is awarded for the best paper published in each year of the Institute of Physics and Engineering (York, UK) journal of Physiological Measurement.

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