H.27 Preventing complications of thoracentesis with easy identification of thoracic layers during the procedure  

Thoracentesis is a procedure done to extract pleural fluid and analyze it for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. It’s usually done at bedside and requires a needle entering a the back and going deep towards the pleura, then suctioning the pleural fluid. When doing a thoracentesis, providers cross through multiple layers: the skin- fat layer- muscles-  ligaments- then pleura, and might encounter bone, vessels and nerve bundles on the way in. One of the most common complications of thoracentesis is going too far and perforating the lungs causing pneumothorax. Another complication includes perforating the vessels close to the ribs causing bleeding. Physicians usually proceed carefully during the thoracentesis to prevent those complications, but there’s really nothing that tells them where their needle is and they just need to rely on their expertise/senses. The goal of this project is to develop a tool that can detect the location of a thora needle during the procedure based on the tissue impedance /conducive properties, or other identifiable characteristic