Apparatus and method to determine functional lung characteristics
First Claim
1. An apparatus for determining functional lung characteristics of a patient, the apparatus comprising:
- an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging device with an electrode plane for recording a impedance distribution within a plane of a thorax of the patient, the EIT imaging device including a control and analysis unit for performing an impedance measurement and deriving the impedance distribution within the plane of the thorax (EIT image), the control and analysis unit automatically performing the steps as follows;
determining a global impedance change, defined as an impedance change with respect to an earlier measured reference impedance distribution integrated over the electrode plane, and recording a global impedance change curve as a function of time;
performing breath detection in order to identify one or more breathing cycles;
subdividing each of said one or more breathing cycles to define a plurality of intratidal intervals;
subdividing an EIT image from each of said intratidal intervals into a plurality of regions of interest and calculating for each region of interest a ratio of an integrated impedance change within one of said regions of interest to the global impedance change of said EIT image; and
for each intratidal interval presenting indications of the ratio determined for each of the regions of interest to provide an intratidal gas distribution representation for each of said intratidal intervals.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus for determining functional lung characteristics of a patient includes an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging device adapted to record the impedance distribution within a plane of the thorax of the patient. The EIT imaging device includes a control and analysis unit for performing the impedance measurement and deriving the impedance distribution within the plane of the thorax. The control and analysis unit automatically performs steps including determining a global impedance change, defined as the impedance change with respect to an earlier measured reference impedance distribution integrated over the electrode plane, and recording the global impedance change curve as a function of time, performing breath detection in order to identify a breathing cycle, subdividing each breathing cycle to define a plurality of intratidal intervals, subdividing an EIT image from each interval into a plurality of regions of interest and calculating for each region of interest the ratio of the integrated impedance change within this region of interest to the global impedance change of this EIT image, for each intratidal interval presenting indications of the ratios determined for the regions of interest to provide an intratidal gas distribution representation for each interval.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An apparatus for determining functional lung characteristics of a patient, the apparatus comprising:
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an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging device with an electrode plane for recording a impedance distribution within a plane of a thorax of the patient, the EIT imaging device including a control and analysis unit for performing an impedance measurement and deriving the impedance distribution within the plane of the thorax (EIT image), the control and analysis unit automatically performing the steps as follows; determining a global impedance change, defined as an impedance change with respect to an earlier measured reference impedance distribution integrated over the electrode plane, and recording a global impedance change curve as a function of time; performing breath detection in order to identify one or more breathing cycles; subdividing each of said one or more breathing cycles to define a plurality of intratidal intervals; subdividing an EIT image from each of said intratidal intervals into a plurality of regions of interest and calculating for each region of interest a ratio of an integrated impedance change within one of said regions of interest to the global impedance change of said EIT image; and for each intratidal interval presenting indications of the ratio determined for each of the regions of interest to provide an intratidal gas distribution representation for each of said intratidal intervals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15)
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8. A method for determining functional lung characteristics of a patient utilizing an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging device adapted to record an impedance distribution within a plane of the thorax of the patient, the EIT imaging device including a control and analysis unit for performing an impedance measurement and deriving the impedance distribution within the plane of the thorax (EIT image), wherein the following steps are automatically performed:
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determining a global impedance change, defined as the impedance change with respect to an earlier measured reference impedance distribution integrated over the electrode plane, and recording a global impedance change curve as a function of time; performing breath detection in order to identify at least one breathing cycle; subdividing said at least one breathing cycle to define a plurality of intratidal intervals; subdividing an EIT image from each of said intratidal intervals into a plurality of regions of interest and calculating for each region of interest a ratio of an integrated impedance change within one of said regions of interest to the global impedance change of said EIT image; and for each intratidal interval presenting the ratio determined for all regions of interest to provide intratidal gas distributions per region of interest for each interval. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. An apparatus for determining functional lung characteristics of a patient, the apparatus comprising:
an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging device with an electrode plane for recording a impedance distribution within a plane of a thorax of the patient, the EIT imaging device including a control and analysis unit for performing an impedance measurement and deriving the impedance distribution within the plane of the thorax (EIT image), the control and analysis unit automatically performing the steps as follows; determining a global impedance change, defined as an impedance change with respect to an earlier measured reference impedance distribution integrated over the electrode plane, and recording a global impedance change curve as a function of time; identifying one or more breathing cycles based on said global impedance change curve; subdividing each of said one or more breathing cycles to define a plurality of intratidal intervals; subdividing an EIT image from each of said intratidal intervals into a plurality of regions of interest and calculating an intratidal gas distribution ratio for each region of interest, said intratidal gas distribution ratio corresponding to a ratio of an integrated impedance change within one of said regions of interest to the global impedance change of said EIT image; providing an intratidal gas distribution representation based on said intratidal gas distribution ratio for each of said intratidal intervals, said intratidal gas distribution corresponding a contribution of each of said regions of interest to said global impedance change; and setting one or more of positive end expiratory pressure, tidal volume, expiration time and respiratory rate based on said intratidal gas distribution representation.
Specification