Dielectric Loaded Tapered Circular Waveguide Probe for Early Stage Skin Cancer Detection

A nearfield dielectric loaded tapered waveguide probe for early-stage skin cancer detection is presented. The probe consists of a circular waveguide connected to a metal- coated tapered dielectric rod operating between 26 GHz to 29 GHz. The contact point of the probe is narrow, with a tip diameter of 1.6 mm and a sensing depth of 1.2 mm. The operational principle of the probe is based on the resonant frequency shift and reflection coefficient magnitude contrast when in contact with benign and malignant lesions. Based on preliminary simulation results on realistic skin lesion data, the probe has significant potential towards detecting Squamous Cell Carcinoma and its pre-malignant benign condition, Actinic Keratosis, at the nascent state across the dermal-epidermal junction using reflection coefficient magnitude variations. Moreover, early-stage Basal Cell Carcinoma is detectable predominantly by the frequency shift compared to adjacent healthy skin properties. The simulation results on clinically measured dielectric properties of skin lesions show that the probe could detect Stage 0 malignant mutations of thickness as small as 0.1 mm with lateral dimensions ranging from 0.5 to 2 mm. The results indicate the promise of the designed probe towards dermal health monitoring after performance is verified in the clinical environment.