Abstract
Considerable exploration has been done in recent years to exploit the reported inherent dielectric contrast between healthy and malignant tissues for a range of medical applications. In particular, microwave technologies have been investigated towards new diagnostic medical tools. To assess the performance and detection capabilities of such systems, tissue-mimicking phantoms are designed for controlled laboratory experiments. We here report phantoms developed to dielectrically represent malign skin lesions such as liposarcoma and nonsyndromic multiple basal cell carcinoma. Further, in order to provide a range of anatomically realistic scenarios, and provide meaningful comparison between different phantoms, cancer-mimicking lesions are inserted into two different types of skin phantoms with varying tumor–skin geometries. These configurations were measured with a microwave dielectric probe (0.5–26.5 GHz), yielding insight into factors that could affect the performance of diagnostic and detection tools.
Highlights
Over the past decade, microwave reflectometry techniques have been researched for diagnosis and early-stage characterization of malignancies such as subcutaneous masses, skin burn injuries and cancerous lesions in the brain, breast and skin [1–5]
We focus on techniques that exploit the reported inherent dielectric contrast of healthy and malignant tissues in the microwave frequency range [6,7] to identify cancerous lesions or anomalies
Since the dielectric properties are dependent on frequency and temperature, we tissue-mimicking phantoms and validated them using reference models obtained from monitored the temperature of the calibration and validation liquid, i.e., deionized water the literature
Summary
Microwave reflectometry techniques have been researched for diagnosis and early-stage characterization of malignancies such as subcutaneous masses, skin burn injuries and cancerous lesions in the brain, breast and skin [1–5]. We focus on techniques that exploit the reported inherent dielectric contrast of healthy and malignant tissues in the microwave frequency range [6,7] to identify cancerous lesions or anomalies. The current modalities which are considered as gold standards, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-rays, computed tomography methods or CT scanning and ultrasound, each have their shortcomings. For example: X-rays and CT scans involve ionizing radiation, limiting frequent screening; MRI is expensive and not suitable for frequent mass screenings; ultrasound imaging is operator-dependent and requires real-time interpretation [8–12]. The nonspecificity of available techniques for skin cancer requires biopsies, which are uncomfortable to the patient and invasive
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