Dessai Rakshita, Singh Daljeet, Sonkki Marko, Reponen Jarmo, Myllylä Teemu, Myllymäki Sami, Särestöniemi Mariella
Microelectronics Research Unit, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland.
Health Sciences and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland.
Micromachines (Basel). 2024 Sep 14;15(9):1153. doi: 10.3390/mi15091153.
Breast cancers can appear and progress rapidly, necessitating more frequent monitoring outside of hospital settings to significantly reduce mortality rates. Recently, there has been considerable interest in developing techniques for portable, user-friendly, and low-cost breast tumor monitoring applications, enabling frequent and cost-efficient examinations. Microwave technique-based breast cancer detection, which is based on differential dielectric properties of malignant and healthy tissues, is regarded as a promising solution for cost-effective breast tumor monitoring. This paper presents the development process of the first proof-of-concept of a breast tumor monitoring vest which is based on the microwave technique. Two unique vests are designed and evaluated on realistic 3D human tissue phantoms having different breast density types. Additionally, the measured results are verified using simulations carried out on anatomically realistic voxel models of the electromagnetic simulations. The radio channel characteristics are evaluated and analyzed between the antennas embedded in the vest in tumor cases and reference cases. Both measurements and simulation results show that the proposed vest can detect tumors even if only 1 cm in diameter. Additionally, simulation results show detectability with 0.5 cm tumors. It is observed that the detectability of breast tumors depends on the frequency, antenna selection, size of the tumors, and breast types, causing differences of 0.5-30 dB in channel responses between the tumorous and reference cases. Due to simplicity and cost-efficiency, the proposed channel analysis-based breast monitoring vests can be used for breast health checks in smaller healthcare centers and for user-friendly home monitoring which can prove beneficial in rural areas and developing countries.
乳腺癌可能迅速出现并发展，因此需要在医院外进行更频繁的监测，以显著降低死亡率。最近，人们对开发便携式、用户友好且低成本的乳腺肿瘤监测应用技术产生了浓厚兴趣，从而能够进行频繁且经济高效的检查。基于微波技术的乳腺癌检测，是利用恶性组织和健康组织的介电特性差异，被视为一种具有成本效益的乳腺肿瘤监测的有前景的解决方案。本文介绍了基于微波技术的乳腺肿瘤监测背心首个概念验证的开发过程。设计了两款独特的背心，并在具有不同乳腺密度类型的逼真三维人体组织模型上进行评估。此外，使用在电磁模拟的解剖学逼真体素模型上进行的模拟来验证测量结果。评估并分析了肿瘤病例和参考病例中背心内嵌入天线之间的无线电信道特性。测量和模拟结果均表明，所提出的背心即使对于直径仅1厘米的肿瘤也能检测到。此外，模拟结果显示对0.5厘米的肿瘤也具有可检测性。据观察，乳腺肿瘤的可检测性取决于频率、天线选择、肿瘤大小和乳腺类型，这导致肿瘤病例和参考病例之间的信道响应相差0.5 - 30分贝。由于简单且成本效益高，所提出的基于信道分析的乳腺监测背心可用于较小医疗中心的乳腺健康检查以及用户友好的家庭监测，这在农村地区和发展中国家可能会被证明是有益的。
