Patent · US Expired

Electrical impedance tomography method

US6201990A · kind A · utility

14Cited by
7References
2Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 3, 1997
Grant dateMar 13, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 3, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC A)Human Necessities
  • CPC primaryA61B5/0536
  • WIPO fieldMedical technology
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A method of imaging an object contained in a medium, having a specific impedance which is different from the specific impedance of the medium, comprising applying current to the medium at various locations at a surface of the medium, extracting current at other locations, detecting voltages produced by the current which has passed through the medium from the surface of the medium at various other locations, successively determining a location and shape and conductivity of the object with increasing accuracy by processing values of the detected voltages, determining a region in the medium in which the object is located from values of the detected voltages which are within upper and lower threshold values, applying acceleration procedures to the conductivities within the region in the course of iterative refinement of these values in the course of an imaging procedure, subsequently restricting further determination of the location of the object with increasing accuracy to voltages obtained from the region of the medium in which the object is located, and displaying an image on an axis using the restricted location determination values.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.