10th International Conference on Electrical Impedance Tomography (The University of Manchester, UK, 15–19 June 2009)

Abstract

This issue of Physiological Measurement follows the successful 10th International Conference on Electrical Impedance Tomography. The conference was hosted by the University of Manchester's School of Mathematics and organized by Bill Lionheart, Richard Bayford from Middlesex University and Eung Je Woo of Kyung Hee University. A combined workshop on electromagnetic inverse problems was also held at the same time, organized by Olive Dorn and Bill Lionheart. This workshop shared plenary lectures and some sessions. One of the plenaries was by Mark Nelson on electrosensory data acquisition and signal processing strategies in electric fish; perhaps the first time the medical EIT community had shared a conference with experts on the variety of EIT that occurs naturally in some fish. Indeed some electrosensing fish were present at the meeting and an aquarium especially set up in the School of Mathematics.The conference provided a platform for investigators in all aspects of EIT to engage in common areas of interest whilst also giving an opportunity for the community to broaden its outlook in the areas of clinical applications and new technologies associated with EIT. It also provided a link to researchers working on the mathematical aspect of inverse problems that limit the development of EIT for clinical applications. This upholds the tradition of successful conferences on biomedical applications of EIT, as with the previous jointly organized conference on electrical impedance tomography in 2008, co-hosted by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and organized by Alex Hartov of Dartmouth and Eung Je Woo.This special issue of Physiological Measurement contains articles stemming from discussion and feedback during the conference on EIT research areas. The conference was also an opportunity for new researchers to join the community and propose recent innovations. A total of 84 oral papers were presented and all authors were invited to prepare new peer-reviewed papers for inclusion in this issue. The manuscripts were put through a careful review process before a total of 12 were accepted covering an important range of topics.The articles included in this year's special issue clearly reflect the continuing interest in EIT covering a wide range of clinical applications that were strongly represented at the conference. These included brain function, breast imaging, the thorax, and a new target: the prostate. It is important that researchers do not neglect the challenges that clinical applications of bio-impedance and EIT present as there are still many technical difficulties that the technology needs to overcome in order to provide valuable clinical tools. However, there are promising signs that these tools are close to realization, particularly for thorax imaging. This was clear as the most popular clinical application at the conference was a special session organized by Inez Frerichs, which provided an invaluable forum for clinical practitioners and EIT researchers to exchange ideas.As EIT continues to provide researchers with new challenges, the high quality of the research articles in this special issue is clear evidence of the significant advances in the field.