Assessment and Development of Microwave Imaging for Breast Cancer Detection

By Peter Damsgaard Jensen

Microwave imaging is proposed as an alternative to X-ray mammography. The different approaches that currently are being pursued can be divided into two groups: Ultrawideband radar-based methods in which the images are constructed by determining the point-of-origin of reflected pulses, and tomographic or inverse-scattering techniques in which the images are created by solving an inverse scattering problem based on Maxwell’s equations.

A prototype system is currently being developed as part of the project belongs to the latter group. The system consists of 32 antennas, each equipped with their own transceiver module used for collecting the measurement data. Inverse scattering algorithms are applied to create 3-D images from the measured data. The project focuses on development of the prototype system, improved inverse algorithms and experimental validation.

Potential advantages of microwave imaging are the use of non-ionizing radiation, better sensitivity to cancer tissue in young women, and a lower cost of the system.

 Completed: 2014