A time- and temperature-stable complex breast phantom for microwave breast imaging

Microwave imaging has been proposed for breast imaging. At the University of Calgary, a tissue sensing adaptive radar (TSAR) system is being developed [J. Bourqui, J. Sill and E. Fear, Int Jour Biomedical Imaging, 12 pages, 2012]. This system uses the reflections of microwaves from different tissue types to create images related to the electromagnetic properties, which are then used to identify anomalies that may correspond to tumors. To test this system, physical breast models with similar dielectric properties to human breasts are required. These phantoms are difficult to create due to the relatively high dielectric properties of human tissue, the complex inner structure of the breast and the need to position the phantom within the scanner. One popular method of creating breast phantoms is using gelatin mixtures (e.g. [M. Lazebnik et al., Phys Med Biol, 52, pg. 6093–6115, 2007]). These mixtures can create highly-accurate breast phantoms; however, the gelatin mixtures lack physical robustness, they need to be cooled and ultimately they will breakdown over time. There is a need for a new approach to create phantoms that will have similar dielectric properties to the breast, will have complex inner structures, and yet will not decay over time.