Photoacoustic Sensing for Differentiating Breast Cancer Sizes – A Numerical Simulation Study

Photoacoustic (PA) sensing is a crossbred technique relying on light-produced ultrasonic signals due to a phenomenon called the PA effect. PA imaging (PAI), which is based originally on PA sensing, has been utilized efficiently in breast cancer identification and characterization over the last few years. In this paper, a numerical simulation study in silico has been applied, utilizing the COMSOL Multiphysics platform based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), for breast cancer sizes’ differentiating by PA sensing. A time-dependent study has been applied on COMSOL resulting in different measured PA signals from different tumor sizes measured at a constant measuring point on the surface of the simulated breast, showing the different shapes for each PA signal and its frequency spectrum for the different tumor sizes. Statistical analysis for some resulting simulated PA signals has been performed by the MATLAB software, deducing that the produced standard deviation values may be considered as a quantitative indication mark of the breast cancer’s size and hence its dangerous degree. In conclusion, the presented study has succeeded qualitatively and quantitatively in differentiating breast cancer tissue sizes in silico. This, in role, may help in giving more insights for in vitro and in vivo PA experiments for breast cancer characterization.