Use of electrical impedance tomography for lung volume reconstruction

Abstract

The article presents a study of the application of electro-impedance tomography (EIT) in diagnosing lung capacity using the Tikhonov regularization method. The possibility of reconstructing the lungs to monitor the degree of air filling was investigated. The experiment included a series of tests using a torso phantom designed to simulate different states of the lungs - from fully inflated to fully deflated. Lung-filling states were manipulated in controlled scenarios to test nine main experimental conditions reflecting different lung-filling states. In addition, the quality of reconstruction was checked using various types of reference backgrounds. The results show significant differences in lung volume reconstructions depending on the lung filling state. The most successful reconstructions, which were obtained using the 'No phantom' background, provided the most explicit visualization of the lungs, reassuring the method's reliability. The experiments confirm the potential of EIT to distinguish between different lung states and reconstruct the degree of lung filling. The study also underscores the need to optimize the reference background to increase the precision of the images, especially for the left lung.