Electromagnetic tomographic cerebral angiography

Abstract

World Health Organization stated that “Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. Angiography is an important method in diagnostic of CVD. Standard-of-Care methods of angiography, such as X-Ray or CT- or MRI- angiography methods, being accurate and widely adopted in clinical practice, are bulky, expensive and energy in-efficient. X-ray and CT- angiography methods are also potentially hazardous as techniques require the use of ionizing contrast agents. Electromagnetic tomography (EMT) is an emerging medical imaging modality. EMT is applicable for safe functional imaging but suffers from a limited spatial resolution because of relatively large wavelength of electromagnetic radiation as compared to sizes of biological targets of particular interest, such as, for example blood vessels. Novel approach and method, presented in the study is capable to overcome such limitations and provide a mean for a dynamic, on-line EMT angiography. New method of EMT angiography was presented in application to cerebral angiography. Achieved imaging results clearly demonstrate applicability of the method for detecting small cerebral vessels of the diameter as small as 1.3 mm and to distinguish vessels with different dimensions. The technical challenges in the development of angiography capable EMT systems are assessed and discussed.