Microwave Technique Based Noninvasive Monitoring of Intracranial Pressure Using Realistic Phantom Models

Abstract

Microwave technology is emerging as a promising candidate in the field of medical diagnosis and imaging and has paved the way for a transition from invasive to non-invasive methods of monitoring various biological phenomena inside the human body. Intracranial Pressure (ICP) is considered to be a very important parameter by medical practitioners for assessing the health of a subject. Accurate, prolonged, and noninvasive measurement of ICP is still an open area of research with no clinical success so far. Therefore, in this paper, a microwave-based method for non-invasive monitoring of ICP is proposed. The setup utilizes flexible, thin, small, and lightweight planner antennas that are very suitable for non-invasive monitoring of ICP from the skin without compromising the comfort of subject. The proposed microwave method is tested on a realistic head phantom model which imitates the functioning of hydrodynamics in a real human head. The measurement results from the proposed method are verified using invasive pressure sensors. It is deduced from numerous trials that the proposed microwave system can detect small changes in ICP pressure and its response is analogous to actual pressure values measured by invasive pressure sensors.