A feasibility study of in vivo electromagnetic imaging

Over the last decade several non-invasive electromagnetic techniques to determine human body composition have been described, based primarily on the good discrimination in electrical conductivity between fat tissue and water-bearing fat-free tissue. As an extension of such work, carried out within the Swansea In Vivo Analysis Research Group, an electromagnetic system is described which has the potential to generate useful in vivo images of body structure. Preliminary experiments on this electromagnetic scanning imager, using simple saline phantoms as objects, are discussed. It is shown that objects with electrical conductivities corresponding to fat and fat-free tissue can be differentiated and that the internal and external geometry of simple objects can be sensed. Images are presented which have been generated by several image reconstruction techniques.