Biomedical Engineering

The RCL in collaboration with national hospitals and research groups has gained experience in design and construction of impedance plethysmography systems for studying biological functions and pulmonary disease. Together with its European partners it has participated in the BIOMED1 program sponsored by the EU with the objective of studying and developing the Electrical Impedance Tomography as a new, effective and non-invasive medical imaging technique. The group has been involved in both the development of methods for image reconstruction and implementation of relative instrumentation. Moreover, the group has been carrying out research in the interaction of microwaves with biological tissue for cancer treatment purposes. Different microwave hyperthermia systems have been studied for their ability of focusing energy at the site of tumor and methods have been developed for treatment planning.

Recent publications in this area are:

Book Chapters

A chapter entitled "Techniques in EIT" by J. N. Sahalos, G. Kyriakou and C. S. Koukourlis is included in the book Medical Imaging System Techniques and Applications, Gordon and Breach Science Publisher, 1997.

A chapter entitled "A Modeling Approach for Evaluating SAR for Mobile systems" by T. Samaras and J.N. Sahalos is included, in Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, P. Stavroulakis (ed.), pp. 238-286, Springer, 2003

A chapter entitled  "Thermometry", by T. Samaras, in Encyclopedia of Medical Devices and Instrumentation, (John G. Webster, ed.),  2nd ed., vol. 6, pp. 355-362, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2006

Journal Papers

1.      T. Samaras, A. Christ, A. Klingenbock, and N. Kuster, Worst Case Temperature Rise in a One-Dimensional Tissue Model Exposed to Radiofrequency Radiation, IEEE Trans. on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 492 - 496, 2007

2.      G. Schmid, R. Überbacher, T. Samaras, A. Jappel, W.-D. Baumgartner, M. Tschabitscher and P. R. Mazal, High-resolution numerical model of the middle and inner ear for a detailed analysis of radio frequency absorption, Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol. 52, pp. 1771–1781, 2007

3.      M. L. van der Gaag, M. de Bruijne, T. Samaras, J. van der Zee, and G. C. van Rhoon, Development of a guideline for the water bolus temperature in superficial hyperthermia, International Journal of Hyperthermia, vol. 22, no. 8, pp. 637–656, 2006

4.      A. Christ, T. Samaras, A. Klingenbock and N. Kuster, Characterization of the electromagnetic near-field absorption in layered biological tissue in the frequency range from 30 MHz to 6000 MHz, Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol. 51, pp. 4951–4965, 2006.

5.      M. de Bruijne, T. Samaras, J. F. Bakker, G. C. van Rhoon, Effects of waterbolus size, shape and configuration on the SAR distribution pattern of the Lucite cone applicator, International Journal of Hyperthermia, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 15-28, 2006.

6.      A. Christ, A. Klingenbock, T. Samaras,  C. Goiceanu, and N. Kuster, The dependence of electromagnetic far-field absorption on body tissue composition in the frequency range from 300 MHz to 6 GHz, IEEE Trans. on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 54, no. 5, pp. 2188 - 2195, 2006.

7.      T. Samaras, A. Christ and N. Kuster, Effects of geometry discretization aspects on the numerical solution of the bioheat transfer equation with the FDTD technique, Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol. 51, pp. 221-229, 2006.

8.      N. Nikoloski, J. Froehlich, T. Samaras, J. Schuderer and N. Kuster, Reevaluation and improved design of the TEM cell in vitro exposure unit for replication studies, Bioelectromagnetics, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 215-224, 2005

9.      J. Schuderer, T. Schmid, G. Urban, T. Samaras and N. Kuster, Novel high resolution temperature probe for RF dosimetry, Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol. 49, pp. 83-92, 2004

10.    J. Schuderer, T. Samaras, W. Oesch, D. Spät and N. Kuster, High peak SAR exposure unit with tight exposure and environmental control for in vitro experiments at 1800 MHz, IEEE Trans. on Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 52, no. 8, part 2, pp. 2057-2066, 2004.

11.    J. Schuderer, D. Spät, T. Samaras, W. Oesch and N. Kuster, In vitro exposure systems for RF exposures at 900 MHz, IEEE Trans. on Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 52, no. 8, part 2, pp. 2067-2075, 2004

12.    T. Samaras, G.C. van Rhoon and J.N. Sahalos, Theoretical Investigation of Measurement Procedures for the Qualtity Assurance of Superficial Hyperthermia Applicators, International Journal of Hyperthermia, vol. 18, pp. 416-425, 2002

13.    P. Bonovas, G. Kyriakou and J.N. Sahalos, A Realistic 3D FEM Model of the Human Head, Physiological Measurement, vol. 22, pp. 65-76, 2001