IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2018 Jul;65(7):1607-1616. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2017.2753846. Epub 2017 Sep 18.
Magnetic nanoparticle-aided microwave imaging is recently gaining an increasing interest as a potential tool for breast cancer diagnostics. This is due to the peculiar features of magnetic nanoparticles, which are biocompatible, can be selectively targeted to the tumor, and may change their microwave magnetic response when modulated by a polarizing magnetic field. This latter aspect is particularly appealing, as it enables the physical separation of the microwave signal due the malignancy, targeted by the nanoparticles, from that due to healthy tissue. This increases the specificity of the diagnostic tool, in principle allowing a diagnosis based solely on the detection of the signal due to the nanoparticles response. In this respect, a proper choice of the polarizing field modulation can remarkably increase the detection performances. This paper deals with this issue, by providing the mathematical framework for such an optimization and a procedure for estimating the required quantities from a set of proper measurements. The procedure is then experimentally demonstrated by applying it to a recently developed ultrawideband radar system for the magnetic nanoparticle-aided detection of breast cancer. For such a system, the optimal magnetic field modulation is determined.
磁性纳米粒子辅助微波成像是一种用于乳腺癌诊断的潜在工具，最近受到越来越多的关注。这是由于磁性纳米粒子具有独特的特性，它们具有生物相容性，可以选择性地靶向肿瘤，并且当被偏振磁场调制时，其微波磁响应可能会发生变化。后一个方面特别有吸引力，因为它可以实现由于恶性肿瘤而产生的微波信号与由于健康组织而产生的微波信号的物理分离，从而提高诊断工具的特异性，原则上允许仅基于检测纳米粒子响应产生的信号进行诊断。在这方面，适当选择偏振场调制可以显著提高检测性能。本文通过提供这种优化的数学框架以及从一组适当测量中估计所需量的过程来解决这个问题。然后，通过将其应用于最近开发的用于乳腺癌磁性纳米粒子辅助检测的超宽带雷达系统来进行实验验证。对于这样的系统，确定了最佳的磁场调制。
