Open-Ended Transmission Coaxial Probes for Sarcopenia Assessment.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Devices
• Diagnostic Technology

Background:

• Sarcopenia, characterized by muscle loss and fat infiltration, requires effective diagnostic tools.
• Existing commercial microwave probes have limited penetration depth (0.3 mm) and are lab-bound.
• Calibration instability and susceptibility to motion artifacts hinder current reflection-based probe utility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a handheld, transmission-based probe for improved tissue interrogation.
• To enable non-invasive diagnosis of sarcopenia with enhanced depth sensitivity.
• To overcome limitations of existing reflection-based microwave probes.

Main Methods:

• A novel side-by-side transmission-based probe design was developed.
• Features included optimized geometry for planar excitation and juxtaposed coaxial apertures for controlled interrogation.
• 3D printing was utilized to create elliptical apertures for near-planar geometry.
• Broadband operation from 100 MHz to over 8 GHz was achieved.

Main Results:

• The probe demonstrated significantly greater signal penetration depth (2-3 cm) compared to existing technologies.
• The device exhibited repeatable and reliable performance due to fixed side-by-side positioning.
• The probe was resilient to multipath signal corruption.
• Distinguished between muscle and fat tissue properties at depth, indicating sarcopenia.

Conclusions:

• The developed handheld probe offers a promising tool for sarcopenia diagnosis.
• Enhanced penetration depth and broadband performance enable deeper tissue analysis.
• The technology has the potential to provide crucial specificity for underlying tissue assessment.