title: Assessing skin hydration status in haemodialysis patients using terahertz spectroscopy: a pilot/feasibility study.
abstract: Terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy was used in vivo to measure the body reflectance with the aim of determining experimentally the influence of haemodialysis on the content of water in the human skin. For this purpose, an original methodology of determining the skin properties at THz frequencies from the reflectance was developed. A series of measurements were performed before and after dialysis with ten subjects. The results strongly indicate that the surface body hydration is not the main parameter determining the skin conductivity in the THz range.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic. kadlecf@fzu.cz
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kadlec
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berta
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuzel
authors.forename: Frantisek
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lopot
authors.forename: Vladimír
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Polakovic
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004867:Equipment Design; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena; D055068:Terahertz Spectroscopy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D014867:Water / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014867:Water