Quantitative microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography
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Updated: Jun 8, 2026
Clinical Imaging of Microwave Mammography
Published on: November 14, 2025
Lei Yao1, Gaofeng Guo, Huabei Jiang
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.
Purpose:
Microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography (MI-TAT) is an imaging modality that exploits dielectric contrast while producing images with high ultrasound resolution. Existing reconstruction algorithms for MI-TAT are qualitative and can image only the distribution of the absorbed microwave energy or power loss density. Here the authors describe a method for quantitative MI-TAT and obtain the distribution of dielectric property which directly correlates with tissue structural and functional information.
Methods:
The authors implement the quantitative MI-TAT method based on the finite-element (FE) solution to the Helmholtz equation for electromagnetic field coupled with the thermoacoustic wave equation. Regularization techniques are also used in the FE-based reconstruction algorithm.
Results:
Simulation results are obtained under various practical scenarios including different noise levels, different contrast levels between the heterogeneity and background region, and multiple targets with various sizes and shapes.
Conclusions:
The quantitative MI-TAT method described can provide accurate recovery of conductivity distribution in heterogeneous media and is insensitive to noise effect.
