Incoherent Radar Imaging for Breast Cancer Detection and Experimental Validation against 3D Multimodal Breast Phantoms

Abstract

In this paper we consider radar approaches for breast cancer detection. The aim is to give a brief review of the main features of incoherent methods, based on beam-forming and Multiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithms, that we have recently developed, and to compare them with classical coherent beam-forming. Those methods have the remarkable advantage of not requiring antenna characterization/compensation, which can be problematic in view of the close (to the breast) proximity set-up usually employed in breast imaging. Moreover, we proceed to an experimental validation of one of the incoherent methods, i.e., the I-MUSIC, using the multimodal breast phantom we have previously developed. While in a previous paper we focused on the phantom manufacture and characterization, here we are mainly concerned with providing the detail of the reconstruction algorithm, in particular for a new multi-step clutter rejection method that was employed and only barely described. In this regard, this contribution can be considered as a completion of our previous study. The experiments against the phantom show promising results and highlight the crucial role played by the clutter rejection procedure.

Design and Applications of Multi-Frequency Holographic Subsurface Radar: Review and Case Histories

“…Other biomedical applications of HSR technology are related to more traditional medical imaging [56], [130], [131]. These applications primarily include breast cancer detection of the women [49], [132], [133], [134] and stroke features in the brain [135]. The potential advantage of MW technologies for the diagnosis of stroke is that the traditional computer aided tomography devices are good for diagnosing stroke, but they are expensive and very large devices.…”

An Adaptive Finite Element/Finite Difference Domain Decomposition Method for Applications in Microwave Imaging

“…Since the 90-s quantitative reconstruction algorithms based on the solution of CIPs for Maxwell's system have been developed to provide images of the complex permittivity function, see [17] for 2D techniques, [15,18,31,38] for 3D techniques in the frequency domain and [49,56] for time domain (TD) techniques.…”

“…A such plane wave can be generated by a horn antenna as it was done in experimental works [7,51,52]. We are aware that conventional measurement configuration for detection of breast cancer consists of antennas placed on the breast skin [1,18,19,37,49]. In this work we use another measurement set-up: we assume that the breast is placed in a coupling media and then the one component of a time-dependent electric plane wave is initialized at the boundary of this media.…”

Advanced Computational Methods for Oncological Image Analysis

“…Along with the well-known imaging modalities, such as MR, CT, PET, US, which are now consolidated and used in clinical routine, recently new modalities have emerged that exploit techniques initially born in non-clinical contexts, such as microwaves [17,18]. When the aim is to reconstruct the dielectric/conductivity profile of the tissue under examination, "quantitative" algorithms must be adopted.…”

“…Among linear imaging methods, commonly addressed as radar approaches, beam forming (BF) is probably the most popular in microwave breast imaging. Basically, it consists of time-shifting the signals received over the measurement aperture to isolate signals scattered from (and hence to focus at) a particular synthetic focal point belonging to the imaged spatial area [17]. Microwave-based tomography is a model-based imaging modality that approximately reconstructs the actual internal spatial distribution of a breast's dielectric properties over a reconstruction model consisting of discrete elements.…”