Diagnostic and monitoring electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system for osteoporosis

1. A method of measuring Bone Mineral Density (BMD) comprising:

providing an Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) conductivity distribution model of a plurality of constituents of at least a portion of a subject body, the model comprising at least one bone constituent;

injecting electric current into the portion of the subject body using a current injection electrode, such that at least part of the current flows through the at least one bone constituent;

measuring a value of electric potential at a surface of the subject body using a pickup electrode;

using a value of the injected electric current as input to the EIT model of the at least a portion of the subject body; and

calculating a value of conductance of the bone constituent corresponding to a value of the injected electric current and the measured value of the electric potential, the calculating comprising using the EIT conductivity distribution model including at least a bone conductivity value and a value for non-bone tissue conductivity; and

calculating a patient's Bone Mineral Density (BMD) based on the value of conductance of the bone constituent,

in which the calculating a value of conductance of the bone constituent includes:

(a) providing an initial bone conductivity value for use as a bone conductivity value for bone being measured;

(b) generating said conductivity distribution model including the bone conductivity value and including the values for non-bone tissue conductivity;

(c) forward calculating a value of electric potential at the pickup electrode;

(d) minimizing a difference between the value calculated according to step (c) and the value of electric potential measured at the pickup electrode by adjusting the bone conductivity value; and

(e) calculating a value of conductance of the bone constituent based on the adjusted bone conductivity value.

2. The method of claim 1 in which the EIT model is a parametric EIT (pEIT) model.

3. The method of claim 1 and further comprising calculating Bone Mineral Density (BMD) of the bone constituent based, at least in part, on the value of conductance of the bone constituent.

4. The method of claim 1 in which:

the injecting electric current into the body using a current injection electrode comprises injecting electric current into the body using a plurality of current injection electrodes; and

the measuring a value of electric potential at a surface of the body using a pickup electrode comprises measuring a plurality of values of electric potential at the surface of the body using a plurality of pickup electrodes.

5. The method of claim 1 in which the bone constituent comprises a long bone.

6. The method of claim 4 in which the plurality of current injection electrodes are arranged in an arrangement selected from a group consisting of:

a line along the bone constituent;

an array adjacent to the bone constituent; and

a ring adjacent to the bone constituent.

7. The method of claim 4 in which the plurality of pickup electrodes are arranged in an arrangement selected from a group consisting of:

a line along the bone constituent;

an array adjacent to the bone constituent; and

a ring adjacent to the bone constituent.

8. The method of claim 1 in which:

the value calculated in (c) comprises a vector comprising a plurality of values calculated according to (c);

the value of the electric potential measured comprises a vector comprising a plurality of values of electric potential measured at a plurality of pickup electrodes; and

the minimizing a difference between the value calculated in (c) and the value of electric potential measured at the pickup electrode by adjusting the bone conductivity value comprises minimizing a squared difference between the vector comprising a plurality of values calculated according to (c) and the vector comprising a plurality of values of electric potential measured at the plurality of pickup electrodes by adjusting the bone conductivity value.

9. The method of claim 1 in which the calculating bone conductivity value is an iterative calculation including repeating (b) to (d) a plurality of times.

10. The method of claim 9 in which the iterative calculation comprises a Levenberg-Marquardt parametric optimization scheme.

11. The method of claim 1 in which the EIT model comprises a grid selected from a group consisting of:

a grid having a non-cubic shape corresponding to a shape of the portion of the subject body on which measurement is being performed;

a non-Cartesian grid in which grid lines approximately correspond to a shape of the portion of the subject body on which measurement is being performed; and

a non-Cartesian grid in which grid lines approximately correspond to a shape of the bone constituent of the portion of the subject body on which measurement is being performed.

12. The method of claim 1 in which the injected electric current is alternating current and the value of the measured electric potential is a value of a real component of the measured electric potential.

13. A system for measuring Bone Mineral Density (BMD) comprising:

a computational unit which includes an Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) conductivity distribution model of a plurality of constituents of at least a portion of a subject, the model comprising at least one bone constituent;

an injection electrode for injecting electric current into the portion of the subject, such that at least part of the current flows through the at least one bone constituent;

a pickup electrode for measuring a value of electric potential at a surface of the subject;

wherein the computational unit:

receives input of what value of the injected electric current is injected into the portion of the subject;

receives input of a measured value of electric potential at the surface of the subject;

uses the value of the injected electric current for input to the model; and

calculates a value of conductance of the bone constituent corresponding to the value of the injected electric current and the measured value of the electric potential, the calculating comprising using the EIT conductivity distribution model including a bone conductivity value and a value for non-bone tissue conductivity; and

calculating a patient's Bone Mineral Density (BMD) based on the value of conductance of the bone constituent,

in which the calculating a value of conductance of the bone constituent includes:

(a) providing an initial bone conductivity value for use as a bone conductivity value for bone being measured;

(b) generating said conductivity distribution model including the bone conductivity value and including the values for non-bone tissue conductivity;

(c) forward calculating a value of electric potential at the pickup electrode;

(d) minimizing a difference between the value calculated according to step (c) and the value of electric potential measured at the pickup electrode by adjusting the bone conductivity value; and

(e) calculating a value of conductance of the bone constituent based on the adjusted bone conductivity value.

14. The system of claim 13 in which the EIT model is a parametric EIT (pEIT) model.

15. The system of claim 13 in which at least one electrode is an active electrode.

16. The system of claim 13 comprising a plurality of injection electrodes and a plurality of pickup electrodes.

17. The system of claim 13 and further comprising a sleeve for sliding over a subject and placing at least some of the electrodes in a defined geometric relation to each other.

18. The system of claim 17 in which at least some of the electrodes are arranged in an arrangement selected from a group consisting of:

a line;

an array; and

a ring.