2017 Volume 55Annual Issue 5AM-Abstract Pages 389
Early treatment is important for lymphedema patients but there is no appropriate method to detect lymphedema in early stage. The formation of lymphedema changes electrical properties of normal tissue so the purpose of this study was to establish a method for detecting early stage lymphedema by using electrical impedance tomography (EIT) method.Firstly, the electrical properties of normal condition and lymphedema condition were compared by a two-electrode experiment and phantoms of human upper arm were established to simulate the real condition of lymphedema formation. Then, a series of electrodes surrounding of phantom is placed to inject current and measure boundary voltage. From the boundary voltage the inverse problem was solved and the cross-section image of upper arm was reconstructed. From the image, the inhomogeneity which indicate early symptom of lymphedema was observed.From this study, the possibility of lymphedema early detection by EIT was shown.
