Surface impedance based microwave imaging method for breast cancer screening: Contrast-enhanced scenario

A new microwave imaging method that uses microwave contrast agents is presented for the detection and localization of breast tumours. The method is based on the reconstruction of breast surface impedance through a measured scattered field. The surface impedance modelling allows for representing the electrical properties of the breasts in terms of impedance boundary conditions, which enable us to map the inner structure of the breasts into surface impedance functions. Later a simple quantitative method is proposed to screen breasts against malignant tumours where the detection procedure is based on weighted cross correlations among impedance functions. Numerical results demonstrate that the method is capable of detecting small malignancies and provides reasonable localization.