Structural Level Set Inversion for Microwave Breast Screening Articles uri icon

publication date

  • March 2010

start page

  • 35015

issue

  • 3

volume

  • 26

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0266-5611

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1361-6420

abstract

  • We present a new inversion strategy for the early detection of breast cancer from microwave data which is based on a new multiphase level set technique. This novel structural inversion method uses a modification of
    the color level set technique adapted to the specific situation of
    structural breast imaging taking into account the high complexity of the
    breast tissue. We only use data of a few microwave frequencies for
    detecting the tumors hidden in this complex structure. Three level set
    functions are employed for describing four different types of breast
    tissue, where each of these four regions is allowed to have a
    complicated topology and to have an interior structure which needs to be
    estimated from the data simultaneously with the region interfaces. The
    algorithm consists of several stages of increasing complexity. In each
    stage more details about the anatomical structure of the breast interior
    is incorporated into the inversion model. The synthetic breast models
    which are used for creating simulated data are based on real MRI images
    of the breast and are therefore quite realistic. Our results demonstrate
    the potential and feasibility of the proposed level set technique for
    detecting, locating and characterizing a small tumor in its early stage
    of development embedded in such a realistic breast model. Both the data
    acquisition simulation and the inversion are carried out in 2D.