Improved tissue phantoms for experimental validation of microwave breast cancer detection

This paper presents a methodology for constructing realistic breast phantoms for use in microwave detection of breast cancer. Phantoms for fat, skin, gland and tumour are made from a combination of everyday chemicals. The dielectric permittivity and conductivity of the phantoms are measured at microwave frequencies. Finally, we describe a procedure to combine the four phantom tissue types into a single breast phantom that is sufficiently realistic, both in terms of dielectric properties and physiological structure, to be used in experiments designed to assess the performance of microwave breast cancer detection techniques.