Realistic simulation environment to test microwave hyperthermia treatment of breast cancer

We report in this work, the generation of a realistic simulation environment to test breast cancer microwave hyperthermia treatment. We introduce firstly a realistic breast phantom created in the simulation environment CST Microwave Studio. The phantom is created from MRI images of real patient with resolutions of 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm × 0.5 mm. Then, a temperature simulation is carried out based on the breast phantom and a circular array of tapered slot antenna antennas operating across the band from 3 GHz to 6 GHz. Contrary to previous studies on microwave hyperthermia, this work shows a significant improvement in the accuracy of the thermal simulation using realistic phantom and directional antenna. With purpose of using the model for microwave breast cancer treatment, the temperature distribution in the model is calculated using the simulator CST Microwave Studio.