Computational Feasibility Study of Contrast-Enhanced Thermoacoustic Imaging for Breast Cancer Detection Using Realistic Numerical Breast Phantoms

Time-efficient contrast-enhanced thermoacoustic imaging modality for 3-D breast cancer detection using compressive sensing

“…Some experimental results have been reported demonstrating the effectiveness of CETAI involving contrast agents. A computational study employing realistic numerical breast phantoms containing a tumor and single-walled carbon nanotubes as the contrast agents has been performed by our group [4,5], which substantiates the potential of CETAI for breast cancer detection. In CETAI, acoustic signals are first recorded for both pre-and postcontrast scenario.…”

“…But it requires intensive spatial sampling of the generated acoustic signals to guarantee acceptable spatial resolution of the image. Thousands of spatial sampling points are usually demanded for screening a human breast [2,5] and inevitably result in long scan time. In a potential clinical context of breast screening using TAI, it is always desired to shorten the scan time without compromising the diagnosis reliability, which is of significant meaning for reducing patients' uncomfortable feeling, panic, movements and received microwave radiation.…”

“…Finally, CS imaging is performed to reconstruct the tumor based on the differential acoustic signal at the sensors. In our previous CETAI modality using the back-projection algorithm [5], 1290 sensors or measurement locations are needed to achieve a good differential image of the same tumor in the same breast phantom, shown in Fig. 1(a).…”

Effectiveness of Existing CAD-Based Research Work towards Screening Breast Cancer

“…Thermo Acoustic Imaging is another novel form of medical imaging techniques that was also reported to be used for breast cancer detection. A study conducted by Wang et al [24] has used contrast while performing Thermo Acoustic Imaging. An experimental as well as simulation-based approach was used considering realtime breast phantoms.…”

A review of microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging: Excitation source, data acquisition system and biomedical applications

“…With the publication of above reports, more and more researchers are aware of the advantages of TAI and put their e®orts into improving TAI system. Nowadays, the main TAI groups in this¯eld are Patch et al, [28][29][30][31][32][33] Ntziachristos et al, [34][35][36][37] Jiang et al, [38][39][40][41][42][43] Xin et al, [44][45][46][47][48][49] Arbabian et al, 50,51 Zheng et al, [52][53][54] Xing et al [80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98] and others. Under the e®orts of these researchers, the excitation source, data acquisition system and image algorithm have been improved greatly, and it can be revealed that TAI is e±cient in detecting the area with anomalous microwave absorption in biological tissue, particularly for breast cancer.…”