Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT)and Its Medical Applications: A Review

This paper reviews the principles of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), different types of current patterns and reconstruction algorithms to assess its potential in medical imaging. A current injection pattern in EIT has its own current distribution profile within the subject under test. Hence, different current patterns have different sensitivity, spatial resolution and distinguishability. Image reconstruction studies with subject or practical phantoms are essential to assess the performance of EIT systems for their validation, calibration and comparison purposes. Impedance imaging of real objects or tissue phantoms with different current injection methods is also essential for better assessment of the biomedical EIT systems. More specifically, this work reviews the three different image reconstruction techniques including back-projection method, iterative method and one-step linearized method. In this review, Resistivity images are reconstructed from the boundary data using Electrical Impedance Tomography and Diffuse Optical Tomography Reconstruction Software (EIDORS).