BREAST IMAGING USING MICROWAVE TOMOGRAPHY WITH RADAR-BASED TISSUE-REGIONS ESTIMATION

Abstract

Microwave tomography (MWT) and a radar-based region estimation technique are combined to create a novel algorithm for biomedical imaging with a focus on breast cancer detection and monitoring. The region estimation approach is used to generate a patient-specific spatial map of the breast anatomy that includes skin, adipose and fibroglandular regions, as well as their average dielectric properties. This map is incorporated as a numerical inhomogeneous background into an MWT algorithm based on the finite element contrast source inversion (FEM-CSI) method. The combined approach reconstructs finer structural details of the breast and better estimates the dielectric properties than either technique used separately. Numerical results obtained with the novel combined algorithmic approach, based on synthetically generated breast phantoms, show significant improvement in image quality.