The problem of anisotropy in Electrical Impedance Tomography

The reconstruction algorithms used for Electrical Impedance Tomography assume that the conductivity is isotropic. If the conductivity is anisotropic then the solution to the reconstruction problem is not unique. As many body tissues are anisotropic this presents a problem. Recent mathematical results suggest that anisotropic conductivities which are indistinguishable using EIT differ by a distortion of the domain. In addition, those anisotropic distributions consistent with some anisotropic distribution are unlikely to occur in practice. What is need for the success of EIT in the anisotropic case is sufficient additional knowledge of the structure of the anisotropy to make the solution of the reconstruction problem unique.