Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT)

Abstract

Looking into the human body is very essential not only for studying the anatomy and physiology, but also for diagnosing a disease or illness. Doctors always try to visualize an organ or body part in order to study its physiological and anatomical status for understanding and/or treating its illness. This necessity introduced the diagnostic tool called medical imaging. The era of medical imaging started in 1895, when Roentgen discovered the magical powerful invisible rays called X-rays. Gradually the medical imaging introduced X-Ray CT, Gamma Camera, PET, SPECT, MRI, USG. Recently medical imaging field is enriched with comparatively newer tomographic imaging modalities like Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT), Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), and Photoacaustic Tomography (PAT). The EIT has been extensively researched in different fields of science and engineering due to its several advantages. This chapter will present a brief review on the available medical imaging modalities and focus on the need of an alternating method. EIT will be discussed with its physical and mathematical aspects, potentials, and challenges.