BONE FRACTURE DETECTION BY ELECTRICAL BIOIMPEDANCE: FIRST NON-INVASIVE MEASUREMENTS IN EX-VIVO MAMMALIAN FEMUR

Abstract

The fracture of long bones is one of the pathologies of greater demand of systems of medical emergencies, the method used for the diagnosis, the radiology of X-rays, produces damages to the patients and to the hospitals environment. For these reasons, our group is studying the implementation of a new diagnostic technique for the detection of bone fractures by bioimpedance measurements. To simulate a limb, two phantom of bovine femurs (the one with an entire bone and the other with a sawn bone) were constructed and non-invasive Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy measurements were taken on them in order to identify differences in their respective Cole Cole diagrams. Impedance spectroscopy was performed by a frequency sweep between 1 Hz and 65 kHz at a fixed current of 1 mA. The results obtained show wide differences in the Cole Cole diagrams of both phantoms (entire and fractured bone), especially concerning the real component of the, which latter, around the bones section corresponding to that of the lesion in both femurs, was always lower in the fractured femur than the entire one. These first superficial (non-invasive) measurements correspond to the electrical impedance spectroscopy bases and these could -in turn- correspond to what occurs in mammals immediately after the fracture happens, i. e. a dramatic increase in electrical conductivity due to diffusion into the fracture site of more conductive materials such as the blood and the extravascular fluids.