Microwave imaging for monitoring breast cancer treatment: A pilot study

Katrin Smith, Jeremie Bourqui, Zefang Wang, Brendon Besler, Mark Lesiuk, Michael Roumeliotis, Sarah Quirk, Petra Grendarova, James Pinilla, Sarah Price, Bobbie Docktor, Elise Fear

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background: Microwave imaging has been proposed for medical applications, creating maps related to water content of tissues. Breast imaging has emerged as a key application because the signals can be coupled directly into the breast and experience limited attenuation in fatty tissues. While the literature contains reports of tumor detection with microwave approaches, there is limited exploration of treatment monitoring. Purpose: This study aims to detect treatment-related changes in breast tissue with a low-resolution microwave scanner. Methods: Microwave scans of 15 patients undergoing treatment for early-stage breast cancer are collected at up to 4 time points: after surgery (baseline), 6 weeks after accelerated partial breast radiation, as well as 1 and 2 years post-treatment. Both the treated and untreated breast are scanned at each time point. The microwave scanner consists of planar transmit and receive arrays and uses signals from 0.1 to 10 GHz. The average microwave frequency properties (permittivity) are calculated for each scan to enable quantitative comparison. Baseline and 6-week results are analyzed with a two-way ANOVA with blocking. Results: Consistent properties are observed for the untreated breast over time, similar to a previous study. Comparison of the scans of the treated and untreated breast suggests increased properties related to treatment, particularly at baseline and 6-weeks following radiotherapy. Analysis of the average properties of the scans with ANOVA indicates statistically significant differences ((Formula presented.)) in the treated and untreated breast at these time points. Conclusions: Microwave imaging has the potential to track treatment-related changes in breast tissues.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)7118-7129
Number of pages12
JournalMedical physics
Volume50
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2023

Keywords

  • breast imaging
  • microwave imaging
  • radiotherapy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biophysics
  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging

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