Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography for Monitoring Electrical Conductivity during Delivery of Electric Pulses in Irreversible Electroporation

Monitoring of electroporation process presents one of the most important aspects towards safe and reliable use of electroporation applications such as irreversible electro-poration (IRE) ablation and electrochemotherapy (ECT). Since electroporation process is related to an induced transmembrane potential, which is directly proportional to the electric field, we proposed a method to determine electric field distribution by means of magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) and current density imaging (CDI). In our previous studies, CDI was adjusted to acquire current density distribution established by electric pulses with repetition rate in the range of kHz. Therefore we developed a new CDI sequence for lower repetition rates, i.e. in the range of 1 Hz. In this study we evaluated feasibility of new CDI sequence to be applied together with MREIT for electroporation applications such as IRE ablation. We performed experimental evaluation on ex vivo liver tissue during application of electric pulses with the repetition rate of 1 Hz. Results of experiment demonstrated successful reconstruction of electrical conductivity and detection of conductivity increase in the tissue.