Separating Respiration and Perfusion in EIT: Harmonic Analysis on 2D-Thorax Simulation

Abstract Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has the potential for monitoring perfusion in addition to respiration on the bedside. Several separation methods were reported, e.g. Filtering, ECG-gating and PCA. However, the separation is not trivial, which is why harmonic analysis was introduced in EIT data analysis. It is based on several assumptions and therefore prove of plausibility is necessary. In this contribution a two-dimensional thorax simulation is introduced, which includes simplified lungs and heart with changing shapes and conductivities due to volume variations and lung perfusion. Harmonic analysis was applied on the simulated data. The separation results are in good agreement with the simulation settings. Further investigations will be required due to limitations of the simulation. Nevertheless, harmonic analysis delivered precise results in ideal and strictly defined conditions.