Guidelines for effective microwave breast imaging: A numerical assessment against 3D anthropomorphic phantoms

Microwave tomography has gained an increasing attention as a tool for breast cancer screening, owing to its potential capability of providing a quantitative estimation of the electromagnetic features of the human tissues. In this respect, the design of the experimental setup is a critical issue, since it may affect the complexity of the involved inverse scattering problem and therefore the reliability of the screening. On the other hand, the choice of the medium in which the breast is immersed as well as the number of antennas and the frequency range are to some extent a degree of freedom. In this communication, we first propose some guidelines to properly set the matching fluid, derived with reference to a 1-D simplified breast model. Then, a numerical assessment of the proposed guidelines effectiveness is given against 3-D anthropomorphic phantoms.