Complex permittivities of breast tumor tissues obtained from cancer surgeries

The variability in measurements of complex permittivities of tumor tissues between multiple samples could be attributed to the volume fraction of cancer cells in the excised tumor tissue. By the use of a digital photomicrograph image and hematoxylin-eosin staining, it was found that the malignant tumor tissue was not fully occupied by the cancer cells, but the cells were distributed locally in the stroma cells depending on the growth of cancer. The results showed that the volume fraction of cancer cells in the tumor tissue had a correlation to the measured conductivity and dielectric constant in the frequency range from 1 GHz to 6 GHz. It introduces a method to understand and gauge variability in measurements between different tumors.