Electrical Impedance Tomography As a Bedside Diagnostic Tool for Pulmonary Embolism

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has been shown to be of value in evaluating the distribution of ventilation. In addition, several studies, particularly case reports, have demonstrated the use of EIT in the assessment of lung perfusion. EIT may be a potential diagnostic bedside tool in the diagnosis and follow-up of acute pulmonary embolism. CASE SUMMARY:We present one case of a patient with COVID-19 who likely had pulmonary thromboembolism where perfusion scans were made before and after thrombolytic therapy. Perfusion scans showed improvement after thrombolytic therapy. This article should therefore be seen as a first step in proving the validity of EIT-derived perfusion scans as a diagnostic for pulmonary embolism. CONCLUSION:The hypertonic saline bolus EIT method as a diagnostic tool for pulmonary embolism is a promising new technique, which can be particularly meaningful for critically ill patients. Further study is required to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of this technique and the impact on decision-making and outcomes of critically ill patients.

Bedside electrical impedance tomography to assist the management of pulmonary embolism: A case report

“…EIT perfusion images could provide some objective information in such a situation. Quite a few studies have reported the efficiency of a high dead space ratio in EIT V/Q match images in detecting massive PE [ 9 , 10 ]. Interestingly, our bedside EIT showed a dead space distribution (accounting for 14.71 %) only in the right lung, failing to meet the threshold of dead space accounting for 30.37 % to diagnose PE in the previous study [ 13 ].…”

“…Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a noninvasive, bedside technique for ventilation monitoring, which is widely used for respiratory therapy [ [6] , [7] , [8] ]. More recently, lung perfusion image detected by EIT through a hypertonic saline bolus injection is gaining attention for its potential in the treatment of lung perfusion-related diseases [ [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] ]. Colleagues have demonstrated the efficacy of EIT ventilation and pulmonary blood flow distribution (ventilation-perfusion, V/Q match) in the diagnosis of massive pulmonary embolism [ 13 ].…”

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) to Optimize Ventilatory Management in Critically Ill Patients: A Report of Two Cases

“…EIT estimates perfusion disturbances at the bedside and has been acquired using two methods: first-pass kinetics and blood volume determination. EIT may be a potential diagnostic bedside tool in the diagnosis and follow-up of acute pulmonary embolism [7,8].…”

Layered Fusion Reconstruction Based on Fuzzy Features for Multi-Conductivity Electrical Impedance Tomography

“…Linearization methods for EIT are time-efficient, stable, and simple, making them prevalent in clinical practice [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Recent studies have demonstrated that the reconstruction accuracy of two-phase distributions, based on regularization algorithms, can be significantly enhanced through simple post-processing or a few iterative steps [ 30 , 31 ].…”