School of ITEE, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072, Brisbane, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 22;7(1):304. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-00436-w.
Thoracic fluid accumulation is one of the significant and early-stage manifestations of fatal diseases, such as lung-cancer, liver-failure and congestive heart-failure. Currently, computational-tomography (CT)-Scan is the most widely used tool for the detection of thoracic fluid. Yet, it is unable to detect small amounts of fluid, has ionizing radiation and lacks mobility. On the other hand, microwave imaging systems have emerged as an accurate and portable complementary diagnostic tool. However, there is a lack of a complete clinical platform that can fulfill the requirements of accurate and reliable imaging. Therefore, a microwave torso scanner that is designed to meet those requirements is presented. In this system, two elliptical-arrays of microwave antennas (sensors) transmit signals towards the torso and collect the back-scattered signals. The captured signals are then processed by a frequency-based imaging algorithm to form microwave images that display a possible accumulated fluid. The system successfully detects and localized small volumes (3 mL) of fluid injected at different places inside a torso-phantom. As preparations for future clinical trials, the system is tested on healthy subjects to define the threshold range of healthy scenario images.
胸腔积液是肺癌、肝衰竭和充血性心力衰竭等致命疾病的早期重要表现之一。目前，计算机断层扫描（CT）是检测胸腔积液最广泛使用的工具。然而，它无法检测少量的液体，具有电离辐射，并且缺乏移动性。另一方面，微波成像系统已成为一种准确且便携的补充诊断工具。然而，缺乏一个完整的临床平台来满足准确可靠成像的要求。因此，提出了一种旨在满足这些要求的微波体扫描仪。在该系统中，两个椭圆形的微波天线（传感器）阵列向体部发射信号并收集反向散射信号。然后，通过基于频率的成像算法处理捕获的信号，以形成显示可能积聚的液体的微波图像。该系统成功地检测到并定位了在体模内部不同位置注入的小体积（3 毫升）的液体。作为未来临床试验的准备，该系统在健康受试者身上进行了测试，以确定健康情况下图像的阈值范围。
