Exploring Joint Tissues With Microwave Imaging

In this paper, a feasibility study of the application of the tissue sensing adaptive radar technique for imaging of the knee is presented. Selected tissues of the knee joints were characterized, from the dielectric properties point of view, through measurements on bovine tissue samples using a high precision dielectric probe. Based on the acquired data, numerical studies were conducted on a realistic finite-difference time-domain model of a meniscus, as well as on a model of a patellar tendon to investigate the possibility of detecting lesions. To confirm our observations, measurements on healthy and experimentally torn menisci and tendons from bovines were performed. Overall, the results suggest that microwave imaging has potential for knee imaging.