In this paper, a deep learning technique for tumor detection in a microwave tomography framework is proposed. Providing an easy and effective imaging technique for breast cancer detection is one of the main focuses for biomedical researchers. Recently, microwave tomography gained a great attention due to its ability to reconstruct the electric properties maps of the inner breast tissues, exploiting nonionizing radiations. A major drawback of tomographic approaches is related to the inversion algorithms, since the problem at hand is nonlinear and ill-posed. In recent decades, numerous studies focused on image reconstruction techniques, in same cases exploiting deep learning. In this study, deep learning is exploited to provide information about the presence of tumors based on tomographic measures. The proposed approach has been tested with a simulated database showing interesting performances, in particular for scenarios where the tumor mass is particularly small. In these cases, conventional reconstruction techniques fail in identifying the presence of suspicious tissues, while our approach correctly identifies these profiles as potentially pathological. Therefore, the proposed method can be exploited for early diagnosis purposes, where the mass to be detected can be particularly small.

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The advancement of new promising techniques in the field of biomedical imaging has always been paramount for the research community. Recently, ultrasound tomography has proved to be a good candidate for non-invasive and safe diagnostics. In particular, breast cancer imaging may benefit from this approach, as frequent screening and early diagnosis require decreased system size and costs compared to conventional imaging techniques. Furthermore, a major advantage of these approaches consists in the operator-independent feature, which is very desirable compared to conventional hand-held ultrasound imaging. In this framework, the authors present some imaging results on an experimental campaign acquired via an in-house ultrasound tomographic system designed and built at the University of Naples Parthenope. Imaging performance was evaluated via different tests, showing good potentiality in structural information retrieval. This study represents a first proof of concept in order to validate the system and to consider further realistic cases in near future applications.

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