Gastrointestinal ischemia monitoring through impedance spectroscopy as a tool for the management of the critically ill

Impedance spectroscopy (IS) has been proposed as a tool for monitoring mucosal tissue ischemia and damage in the gut of critically ill patients resulting from shock and hypoperfusion. A specific device and system have been developed and tested for this specific application over the past 12 years by our research group. This paper reviews previously published studies as well as unpublished experimental results, and puts the whole in context and perspective to help understand this technology. Results presented include summaries of gastric reactance measurement understanding, in vivo measurements in animal models, clinical significance of the measurement, and future perspectives of clinical use of this technology. All of the experimental work done to date has been designed to determine the evolving device prototypes’ performance and limitations from an instrumentation point of view. Although there are still questions to be answered with regard to the IS measurement, we conclude that we have reached enough confidence in the measurement and the device’s performance and safety to begin clinically oriented research to learn how this technology may be useful in the diagnosis and management of different populations of the critically ill.