Enhanced Detection of Magnetic Nanoparticles Using a Novel Microwave Ferromagnetic Resonance Imaging System

Abstract

Although microwave imaging (MWI) remains a promising future diagnostic tool in breast cancer detection and monitoring, its progress towards widespread clinical application would greatly benefit from an improvement to its relatively low spatial and contrast resolution in delineating healthy and abnormal tissues, especially in comparison to established modalities such as mammography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To this end, research has been undertaken in this work exploring multiple methods of improving the quality of MWI reconstructions.

Experimental Characterization of Spurious Signals in Magnetic Nanoparticles Enhanced Microwave Imaging of Cancer

“…, n), of the scattering matrix of the (unperturbed) n-port MW system. In the case of a solder, the amplitudes of the spurious harmonics generated under a unit incident voltage and a PMF of intensity H, are provided by ( 9) and ( 10); for a male-female couple of connectors, a pessimistic, hence conservative, estimate is provided by ( 11) and (12), which refer to a component consisting of two male connectors plus a through.…”

“…Assuming that the MW system is reasonably well matched, the second term of the right-hand side of (13) can be safely neglected, so that the unknown phase factors become inessential for the evaluation of |S H | 2 in (7), which can be made exploiting ( 9)- (12).…”

“…This circumstance is particularly appealing in the case of early-stage tumors, whose diagnosis through standard MWI is impaired by the relatively low intrinsic electric contrast existing between cancerous and healthy tissue [5,6]. So far, this novel diagnostic concept has been assessed through accurate and realistic Sensors 2021, 21, 2820 2 of 19 numerical simulations [7,8], as well as through experiments on simplified breast phantoms and measurement setups [9][10][11][12].…”

Nanomaterials responding to microwaves: an emerging field for imaging and therapy

“…With this in mind, MW imaging systems have begun to explore the inclusion of contrast enhancement, such as through iron oxides. 36 A range of materials have been investigated due to their capabilities to affect the relative permittivity. 37 Iron oxides are well established in biomedicine through their use as MRI contrast agents and identication as vehicles for drug delivery.…”

“…With this in mind, MW imaging systems have begun to explore the inclusion of contrast enhancement, such as through iron oxides. 36 …”