Magnetic impedance tomography.

Tissue can be characterized by its electrical impedance, especially if measurement can be extended over a range of frequencies. Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in imaging the distribution of electrical impedance through the technique of electrical impedance tomography (EIT). However, EIT has a number of practical problems relating to the placement of electrodes on the body. Such contacts are not required to collect magnetic field data around an object through which current is flowing and thus this approach may be more practical than EIT in the clinical environment. This paper describes the technique of magnetic impedance tomography (MIT), which allows reconstruction of the current distribution from magnetic field measurements. The reconstruction techniques used to generate the images and the prototype data collection system are described. Images produced using data collected from discrete and distributed current phantoms and the thorax during human respiration are presented.