Microwave Scattering at Malignant Tissue Boundaries: A New Method for Breast Screening

Abstract

This paper discusses a microwave application and the subsequent inverse computation method to detect a tumor inside the breast. The signal's incidence and scattering effect at the breast is modeled using a cylindrical coordinate system. Electrical properties of the normal and malignant tissues are the effective candidates for identifying the tumor inside the breast model. The algorithm calculates the tumor's size and its location using the forward and scattered waves. The scattering effect of the cylindrical wave functions at the presence of a cylinder is used to develop the forward equations in our model. In practical application, both forward and backward waves are obtained using reflection coefficient measurements. The measured data are then analyzed using the inverse algorithm to find the unknown object dimensions and location. As the measured data are subjected to inaccuracy due to the complexity of microwave scattering inside the breast, we test the accuracy of our inverse algorithm for a 10% error in the measured data and show that we can obtain a less than 0.5% error in the estimate of tumor distance.