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Electrical and Dielectric Properties in Tissues

 

Overview

Biological tissues have very characteristic electric and dielectric properties and these can be lever-aged for precise imaging of organs or location of tumors. Furthermore, electric and dielectric measurements, which use probes which injecting small alternating currents or voltages covering all the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to microwaves, do not require ionizing radiations or intense magnetic fields and they can safely be used for continuous monitoring. 

These probes can be miniaturized and mounted on smart and flexible tools which can aid the med-ical doctor and the surgeon during a surgery. Digital and mathematical elaboration can be subse-quently used in real time to reconstruction a tomographic image of the probed region or to draw specific information from the probed region.



Current research at ITeM

"Analysis of electrical (Impedance) and dielectric properties (Radar) for Localization and assessment of tissue changes” (in German: “Analyse von elektrischer Impedanz und dielektrischen Eigenschaften (Ra-dar) zur Lokalisierung und Beurteilung von Gewebsveränderungen”, in short AIRLoBe) focuses on creating a mathematical model of organs and tissues which include both electrical and dielectrical properties. On top of this a virtual sensor to detect the variation of these properties can be de-signed and tested. One goal is to distinguish among healthy and cancerous tissues which can be used to create a localization system for tumors. Moreover, differentiating untreated and cauter-ized tissues, it is possible to guide the surgeon during the electro-cauterization procedures.

The main topics are:

  • mathematical modeling of human tissues and organ
  • mathematical modeling of electrical and dielectrical measurements
  • reconstruction algorithm to derive images from electrical and dielectrical measurements
  • integration of miniaturized electrical and dielectrical measurements on smart medical devices

Cooperations
  • Chair of Electrical Measurement and Testing Methods at the University of Freiburg (EMP)
  • Institute for Medical Device Technology University of Stuttgart (IMT)
  • KARL STORZ SE & Co KG
  • Telocate GmbH
  • University Hospital Mainz