Deformable boundary EIT for breast cancer imaging

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has been investigated as a potential non-invasive method for breast cancer imaging for more than two decades. However, since EIT requires direct contact with the boundary, electrode positioning and boundary movement have always been considered as two of the sources of errors and artifacts. A breast can be deformed due to its natural structure. Therefore, if the breast is deformed on purpose, each deformation can provide one new set of independent EIT measurements data. More independent data provides more information from the same region of interest. In this hypothesis, information gathered with different deformations is combined, in all cases we assumed that shape and electrode positions measured by other means. Simulations have been carried out to verify the hypothesis, and results show improvements in the detectability of the early stage tumor in depth.