Assessment of the Viability of Transplant Organs with 3D Electrical Impedance Tomography

Methods that can determine the extent of tissue damage in transplant organs, before the decision to transplant has been made, have the potential to improve the outcome of the procedure by preventing unfit organs from being transplanted into the patient. The raised confidence in the organ state with such a technique would also increase availability. Now restricted due to the fear of introducing a failed organ resulting from the relative lack of viability data during transport, stringent criteria for donation would relax. Electrical impedance tomography is an imaging modality that recovers the spatial variation of the complex impedivity in the body from electrical measurements made on the periphery. In this study, we apply 3D EIT with the complete electrode model to a sample conductivity distribution that might result from an organ that is losing its viability due to prolonged ischemia. The reconstructed images show that EIT has the potential to become an adjuvant method for the field of organ transplantation