RF Field Based Detection of Compartment Syndrome

This paper aims to present a novel method, design concept, and numerical realization of Radio Frequency (RF) based detection of compartment syndrome. The proposed method uses electromagnetic waves, produced by a small printed antenna at frequency of 300 MHz for identifying compartment syndrome. The effects of compartment syndrome and changes on tissue dielectric properties are taken into account, since the ways in which dielectric properties differences between normal and injured tissue should aid for diagnostic on injured area by RF-wave radiation. There is need of timely and an accurate non-invasive clinical diagnosis of compartment syndrome and our goal is to design a radio frequency based detector to identify the compartment syndrome of the lower leg, the most commonly effected area for patients. Because the antenna can be made very small, RF-based detection of compartment syndrome applications can be extended to small-scale devices. Numerical studies shows that compartment syndrome as small as of 5 ml can be detected with this method.