Measurement and comparison of dielectric properties of human pancreatic tumours, healthy tissues and porcine tissues ex vivo between 1Hz and 1MHz

Abstract

The dielectric properties of pancreatic tissues from human healthy and tumour-bearing tissues have been extracted from impedance measurement on ex vivo, freshly excised samples. They are compared to pig pancreas samples, measured following the same protocol. The purpose is to add data to the scarce literature on the properties of the human pancreas and pancreatic tumours, for treatment planning, tissue identification and numerical simulations. The conductivity measured at 500 kHz for human healthy pancreas is 0.26 S/m, while the conductivity of tumour-bearing tissues is 0.44 S/m. Those values differ significantly from that listed in the IT IS database at 0.57 S/m, suggesting an update might be to consider. However, measures of relative permittivity are in accordance with the database with a value of approximately 2.3x103. Ex vivo porcine model, while being less conductive than human pancreas with 0.16 S/m at the same frequency, is deemed a relevant model when studying pancreatic applications of electromagnetic fields-based treatments, such as radiofrequency ablation.