Experimental Breast Phantoms for Estimation of Breast Tumor Using Microwave Imaging Systems

Abstract

In this paper, the preparation and the measurement of a set of human breast phantoms for microwave breast imaging (MBI) as a method of tumor detection are presented. The developed artificial breast phantoms have realistic dielectric properties. Homogenous and most realistic heterogeneous breast phantoms have been fabricated based upon 3D structures filled up with different chemical mixtures that imitate the various breast tissue types (skin, healthy fat tissue, glandular tissue, and tumor tissue) regarding permittivity over ultra-wideband frequency band (3.1–10.6 GHz). The primary challenge in fabricating such phantoms is in developing suitable mixtures of materials to emulate those properties across the frequency band of interest in hyperthermia and to fabricate the phantom with realistic anatomy. Once fabricated, the dielectric properties are measured using a dielectric probe connected with a modern vector network analyzer. The measured dielectric is compared to real human breast dielectric properties, and the primary imaging results are presented. The integrated design of the homogenous and heterogeneous phantoms permits to combine the tumor and breast phantoms dynamically for creating a test platform based on MBI systems. The experimental dielectric properties of the phantoms show good agreement with this paper and theoretical results. The phantoms are constructed in such a way that the chosen materials demonstrate the properties to be stable over a long period. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of our proposed phantoms to be used in investigating as a supplement to the real human breast tissue with multiple object and comparatively high-resolution image.