Detection of dielectric contrast of breast tissues using confocal microwave technique

Confocal microwave technology is explored as a screening tool to detect regions of dielectric contrast in breast tissues. When exposed to microwaves, malignant breast tissues exhibit electrical properties that are significantly different from that of healthy breast tissues, due to the variations of bound water content. In vitro studies of normal breast tissues having cancerous inclusions in the presence of a matching coupling medium are reported here. Experimentally obtained time‐domain results are substantiated by finite‐difference time‐domain analysis. It is observed that the dielectric contrast of breast tissues is satisfactorily determined using the pulsed confocal microwave technique. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 1187–1190, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21570