The effects of dielectric values, breast and tumor size on the detection of breast tumor

Abstract

Although breast cancer is the second main cause of female deaths after lung cancer, early diagnosis plays a crucial role to diminish the death rate. Many techniques have been improved to detect the cancerous cells. At different microwave frequencies, the malignant cells indicate different electrical characteristics as compared to the normal cells. According to these frequencies, the breast tissue is more permeable than other tissues such as the brain and muscle. Due to this property of the breast tissue, microwaves can be used for the detection of breast cancer. In this study, the breast prototype was modelled using the CST STUDIO SUITE electromagnetic simulation software with respect to different breast size, tumor size and dielectric values tested at a range of the 0-3.0 GHz frequency. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of each factor and the interactions of factors on detecting cancer cells using the factorial analysis. The results indicate that the factors such as fat and skin permittivity, tumor and breast sizes are more effective in the detection of breast tumor. Although the effect of fibro permittivity is not significant alone, there are considerable interaction effects of a large breast size and small tumor size through low-to-high values of fibro permittivity. Furthermore, the combinations of a breast radius smaller than almost 8.5 cm with a high level tumor radius and breast radius larger than 8.5 cm with a low level tumor radius are desirable for lessening the return loss value.