Hybrid microwave tomography technique for breast cancer imaging

This paper addresses a two-dimensional inverse scattering method with a combination of tomography and radar methods for breast cancer detection. In order to rapidly construct high resolution images displaying the location, size, permittivity and conductivity of malignant tumors inside the body, the collected reflection from the scattered fields present in the scan area is segmented and their associated dielectric property maps are calculated. The dielectric profiles are obtained by using a technique that combines frequency domain finite difference time domain (FD)2TD analysis with genetic algorithm (GA) optimization. The applications of the proposed method can vary from medical imaging to nondestructive testing of materials and structures. The proposed technique yielded promising results when applied to simulated data.