Ferroelectric Nanoparticles for Contrast Enhancement Microwave Tomography: Feasibility Assessment for Detection of Lung Cancer

Abstract

Abstract-Microwave Tomography (MWT) has recently attracted a significant interest for its potential biomedical applications. It has been shown that MWT might be applicable for non-invasive assessment of functional and pathological conditions of various soft tissues, including tissue malignancies. Since within this imaging modality tissues are differentiated and, consequentially can be imaged based on the contrast in dielectric properties, the diagnostic potentials of MWT are based on the contrast in dielectric properties between normal and malignant tissue. However, giving complexity of MWT imaging, especially for such inhomogeneous objects as human torso, it is desirable to enhance a natural dielectric contrast.We suggest using ferroelectric nanoparticles for contrast enhancement of MWT. Here we report some of our experimental results of dielectric properties of various ferroelectric nanoparticles and further computer simulations for an assessment of an enhanced diagnostic power of MWT using a simplified chest model with lung cancer. This initial feasibility study demonstrates that ferroelectric nanoparticles might significantly improve a diagnostic power of MWT.

The fundamentals and applications of piezoelectric materials for tumor therapy: recent advances and outlook

“…Therefore, the diagnostic potential of MWT is based on the comparison of dielectric properties between physiological and pathological tissues. 141 Consequently, MWT may be suitable for the non-invasive assessment of various soft tissue functional and pathological conditions, including malignant tissues, which generate a scattered field, and imaging is performed. However, considering the complexity of MWT, especially the heterogeneity of human tissues, which generates spurious interference largely affecting the effectiveness of microwave medical imaging, there is a need to enhance the original dielectric constant contrast.…”

Electromagnetic Torso Scanning: A Review of Devices, Algorithms, and Systems

“…Microwave tomography is utilized to detect and localize lung cancer [ 96 , 97 ] or create an image of intact canine or swan heart [ 23 , 98 ]. In [ 97 ], the method is applied to two-dimensional computer-simulated model of the chest with three high contrast inhomogeneities which model lung tumors. The location of the tumors is successfully detected using the tomography approach.…”

A Feasibility Study for Microwave Breast Cancer Detection Using Contrast-Agent-Loaded Bacterial Microbots

“…However, the effectiveness of microwave medical imaging is considerably influenced by clutter interference due to healthy tissue inhomogeneities [2]. This problem can be possibly solved by using a contrast agent such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [3] or ferroelectric nanoparticles (FNPs) [4] to change the tumor tissue dielectric values. These agents can be transported selectively to cancer cells via systemic administration for specific and noninvasive diagnosis of tissue malignancies within specified regions-of-interest (ROI).…”