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Novel techniques, such as microwave imaging, have been implemented in different prototypes and are under clinical validation, especially for breast cancer detection, due to their harmless technology and possible clinical advantages over conventional imaging techniques. In the prospective study presented in this work, we aim to investigate through a multicentric European clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT05300464) the effectiveness of the MammoWave microwave imaging device, which uses a Huygens-principle-based radar algorithm for image reconstruction and comprises dedicated image analysis software. A detailed clinical protocol has been prepared outlining all aspects of this study, which will involve adult females having a radiologist study output obtained using conventional exams (mammography and/or ultrasound and/or magnetic resonance imaging) within the previous month. A maximum number of 600 volunteers will be recruited at three centres in Italy and Spain, where they will be asked to sign an informed consent form prior to the MammoWave scan. Conductivity weighted microwave images, representing the homogeneity of the tissues' dielectric properties, will be created for each breast, using a conductivity = 0.3 S/m. Subsequently, several microwave image parameters (features) will be used to quantify the images' non-homogenous behaviour. A selection of these features is expected to allow for distinction between breasts with lesions (either benign or malignant) and those without radiological findings. For all the selected features, we will use Welch's t-test to verify the statistical significance, using the gold standard output of the radiological study review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MammoWave is a microwave imaging device for breast lesion detection, employing two antennas which rotate azimuthally (horizontally) around the breast. The antennas operate in the 1-9 GHz band and are set in free space, i.e., pivotally, no matching liquid is required. Microwave images, subsequently obtained through the application of Huygens Principle, are intensity maps, representing the homogeneity of the dielectric properties of the breast tissues under test. In this paper, MammoWave is used to realise tissues dielectric differences and localise lesions by segmenting microwave images adaptively employing pulse coupled neural network (PCNN). Subsequently, a non-parametric thresholding technique is modelled to differentiate between breasts having no radiological finding (NF) or benign (BF) and breasts with malignant finding (MF). Resultant findings verify that automated breast lesion localization with microwave imaging matches the gold standard achieving 81.82% sensitivity in MF detection. The proposed method is tested on microwave images acquired from a feasibility study performed in Foligno Hospital, Italy. This study is based on 61 breasts from 35 patients; performance may vary with larger number of datasets and will be subsequently investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the performance of a simple microwave beamforming method using the Huygens scattering principle (called here the Huygens principle method) for detecting breast lesions. The beamforming method is similar to non-iterative time reversal in that the wave received is propagated back into the material, although differs in its treatment of attenuation. The single pass algorithm does not require a solution to an inverse model, making it computationally efficient and so able to offer a throughput appropriate for clinical use. Its performance is compared with time-delay beamforming, which may be implemented with similar computational complexity, on a set of phantoms, including a lossy medium, mimicking breast tissue. The method was used to image a commercially fabricated anatomically shaped breast phantom with multiple hidden inclusions mimicking tumours. The procedure was able to identify and localise significant scatterers inside the volume, with only approximate a-priori knowledge of the dielectric properties of the target object, in spite of its underlying assumption of a single scatterer model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Huygens principle microwave imaging gives homogeneity maps of dielectric properties. • Microwave apparatus does not require any breast compression or any matching liquid. • MAX/AVG is used to measure the non-homogenous behavior of images. • Detection of inclusions in phantoms is achieved. • MAX/AVG is statistically robust to discriminate between healthy/non-healthy breasts. Microwave imaging has received increasing attention in the last decades, motivated by its application in diagnostic imaging. Such effort has been encouraged by the fact that, at microwave frequencies, it is possible to distinguish between tissues with different dielectric properties. In such framework, a novel microwave device is presented here. The apparatus, consisting of two antennas operating in air, is completely safe and non-invasive since it does not emit any ionizing radiation and it can be used for breast lesion detection without requiring any breast crushing. We use Huygens Principle to provide a novel understanding into microwave imaging; specifically, the algorithm based on this principle provides images which represent homogeneity maps of the dielectric properties (dielectric constant and/or conductivity). The experimental results on phantoms having inclusions with different dielectric constants are presented here. In addition, the capability of the device to detect breast lesions has been verified through clinical examinations on 51 breasts. We introduce a metric to measure the non-homogenous behaviour of the image, establishing a modality to detect the presence of inclusions inside phantoms and, similarly, the presence of a lesion inside a breast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]