ELECTRICAL-IMPEDANCE TOMOGRAPHY - A REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a relatively new imaging tech nique that has been developed during the past decade. The electrical p roperties of tissues are imaged by injecting small currents and measur ing the resultant voltages. These voltages are then converted into a t omographic image using a reconstructing algorithm. The method has no k nown hazards and is relatively inexpensive. There are many possible cl inical applications of this technique but apart from gastric emptying, most are still at the research stage as there are various technical a nd practical problems to be overcome. This paper describes the basic p rinciples of EIT and reviews the English literature to try to assess i ts potential in clinical imaging.