title: A bio-impedance probe to assess liver steatosis during transplant surgery.
abstract: This work addresses the design of a bioimpedance probe to assess steatosis on the exposed liver in the donor during liver transplant surgery. Whereas typically bioimpedance uses needle probes to avoid surface effects, for clinical reasons a non-penetrative probe is required. In addition the need to ensure that the measurement is representative of the bulk tissue suggests a larger probe than is normally used to ensure a sufficiently large measurement volume. Using a simple model, simulations and tests on bovine liver, this paper investigates the relationship between probe dimensions and depth of measurement penetration and investigates the accuracy which might be expected in a configuration suitable for use in the operating theatre on intact but exposed livers. A probe using ECG electrodes is proposed and investigated.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Engineering Science, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, UK. penny.smith@eng.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Penny Probert
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Fusheng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: You
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Silva
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D017097:Electric Impedance; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000473:pathology*; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014180:Transplantation