Microwave Imaging System for Early Detection of
Breast Cancer
Faihaa Mohammed Eltigani*, Maged Ali Ali Yahya* and Mazin Elfadil Osman*
*
Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Gezira
Wad Madani, Sudan
1
faihaa195@gmail.com
2
magedali074@gmail.com
3
omazin12@gmail.com
Abstract— Breast cancer is the most common cancer among
females, and one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
Nowadays, the most common method for breast cancer detection
is X-ray mammogram screening. Since mammography employs
ionizing radiations, the repetition of exposure is not
recommended. Aiming to overcome this limitation of the X-ray
mammogram screening, a new, low-cost and safe microwave
imaging technique was developed in this study. The proposed
technique depends on the significant contrast in the dielectric
properties of the normal and the tumor tissues. The Computer
Simulation Technology Microwave Studio was used to create a
model of breast with tumour of 5mm radius. And a circular
patch antenna was used in this study. The breast model was
placed in front of the antenna, which used as a transmitter as
well as a receiver of the microwave. The reflected waves were
processed in order to form an image of the tumour. The
reconstruction of the reflected waves permits a clear
identification of the tumor.
Keywords— Microwave Imaging; breast tumor; patch antenna;
2D representation
I. INTRODUCTION
Breast cancer in women is a major health burden
worldwide [1]. According to American Cancer Society,
approximately 40,290 women are expected to die from breast
cancer in 2015, also an estimated 231,840 new cases of
invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women, as
well as an estimated 60,290 additional cases of in situ breast
cancer [2]. Overall, the mortality rates by breast cancer have
been decreased 36% from 1989 to 2012. This decline of the
mortality has been attributed to both improvements in breast
cancer treatment and early detection [2].
Currently, the primary method for breast screening is the
X-ray mammography. It is the golden diagnostic tool for
breast cancer, but it has several serious shortfalls. Firstly, it
produces a relatively high false-negative rate, which can be as
large as 30% [2]. Secondly, screening mammography suffers
from a high false-positive rate: on average, 75% of breast
biopsies prompted by a ―suspicious‖ mammographic
abnormality proves benign [3]. Thirdly, screening
mammography is less sensitive in women with radio-
graphically dense breast tissue prevalent in younger women,
where it has been shown that X-ray mammography has failed
to detect up to 30% of cancers greater than 5 mm in diameter
[4].
There are other imaging techniques for screening and
detection of breast cancer in the clinic, such as magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray computed tomography (CT),
and ultrasound (US) [5]. While all these tools may be more
sensitive than mammography in selected populations, they
suffer from low specificity and therefore cannot provide
functional information about the molecular-level changes in
the tissue [6]. The limitations and disadvantages in current
diagnostic methods open the research gateway of using
microwave imaging (MWI) as an alternative method for tumor
detection.
Microwave imaging is a cheaper and much safer technique
than traditional modalities. Since the technique uses a non-
ionizing radiation, it considered to be less harmful to patients.
In microwave imaging, the breast is exposed to a microwave
field, and the reflected waves are reconstructed to from an
image of the breast.
In this context, the aim of this study is to design a low-cost
microwave imaging system for early detection of breast
cancer.
II. MICROWAVE IMAGING SYSTEM
The physical basis for microwave imaging lies in the
significant contrast in the dielectric properties between the
normal breast tissue and the malignant tissue at microwave
frequencies [8].
There are two approaches in MWI: tomography based and
radar based. In microwave tomography, the electrical profile
of the breast is reconstructed by solving a nonlinear and ill-
posed inverse scattering problem. A microwave scattering
map can be obtained from the differences in dielectric
properties of the breast tissues using radar-based imaging [9].
The radar approach to microwave imaging employs
generating and receiving short pulses for various locations of
probe antenna or alternatively by an array antenna. The
processed signals for various locations of a probe antenna or
from array elements are combined to form two or three-
dimensional image showing the location of a highly reflecting
object representing a cancerous tissue [10]. The image quality
provided by radar-based MWI techniques is affected by the
number and efficiency of the receivers, the synthetic aperture
of the antenna array, and the bandwidth of the probing signal. is the conductivity (Siemens/meter) and ɛr is the relative
It is very important to obtain a high performance broadband permittivity of tissue [11].
antenna. Typical characteristics of the antenna to be used in a
radar-based imaging system are: wide impedance bandwidth,
small size, repeatable and cost-effective fabrication, and
ability to efficiently couple power to the breast [9].
Microwave imaging is conducted by transmitting a
sequence of electromagnetic waves through the woman breast
and measuring the scattered field at the perimeter of the
breast. The electromagnetic signals fed to the transmitting
antennas and captured by the receiving antennas are
characterized by scattering parameters (S- parameters).
Fig. 2 Breast model in CST software
In this study, a radar-based microwave imaging system was
developed. The development process consisted of three phases,
which are: TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF THE TISSUES OF THE BREAST AND TUMOR
 Modelling of the antenna and the breast.
 Data acquisition. Model part Size (mm)
 Signal processing and 2D representation. Breast Diameter 100
III. METHODOLOGY Skin Thickness 2
In this study the Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Tumor Radius 5
Microwave Studio was used for the modeling and simulation.
The reflected signals were imported into MATLAB platform TABLE II
which was used as signal processing and image reconstruction DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF THE BREAST AND TUMOR TISSUES
tool. The following sections describe the process of the Property Conductivity σ
development of the system. Permittivity ɛr
Part (S/m)
A. Antenna Model Skin 1.49 37.9
A circular microstrip antenna was used in this study. This Fat 0.14 5.14
antenna was exported to CST platform from Antenna Magus
software, a tool for modelling and designing antennas (Fig. 1). Tumor 1.4 50
The microstrip antenna was selected in this work because of
their low cost, low profile, lightweight, and high efficiency. C. Data Acquisition
The antenna has a substrate with the following dimensions: Data acquisition process was conducted under simulation
Length= 54.2428mm, Width= 54.2428 mm and height= 1 mm. environment using CST application. The frequency was set
and has a patch of 18.08095mm diameter, feed-pin radius of from 0 GHz to 10 GHz. Fig.3 shows the data collection
0.25mm and coaxial diameter of 1.15128mm. process using Microstrip circular patch antenna moving
horizontally from point 1 to point 106 along X-axis plane with
every moving point equal to 1 mm. Total of 106 points were
performed in order to cover the size of the whole model. At
each antenna position, S-parameter signal was collected. The
total 106 signals were then processed to form an image.

Fig. 1 Antenna Model from Antenna Magus Software

B. Breast Model
The breast model has hemispherical shape as shown in fig.2
and the most common dimensions given in Table 1. The Fig.3 Data collection process using circular patch antenna moving
dielectric properties of each part are given in Table 2, where σ horizontally from point 1 to point 106 along X-axis plane
D. Signal Processing order to extract only the reflections of the tumor. Then
The complete process was started with the import of the gaussian window was applied to each signal in order to
raw signals into MATLAB platform. One hundred and six sets enhance the display of each subset of the subtracted signals.
of raw data with 2001 points resulted from scanning of Fig. 10 and fig. 11 shows the results after subtraction and after
simulated breast model with tumor. Again, the same number applying Gaussian window respectively.
of signals were collected from the same breast model without Fig.12 and fig. 13 show the resulted image before and after
tumor inside it. All data sets were being read into MATLAB interpolation respectively. it’s clear that the resulted image
platform. after interpolation is relatively better, and the target is clearly
In order to obtain the recontracted image, a total of five identified.
steps were applied to the collected signals. These steps are:
1) Inverse Fast Fourier Transform: The resulted signals
were transformed into time domain by taking the Inverse Fast
Fourier Transform (IFFT) of the signals.
2) Smoothing: The sets of time domain data were then
smoothed in order to get signals with more continuous and
smooth characteristics.
3) Subtraction: Subtraction method was used to remove
the environment signals and keep only the reflections of the
tumor. The signals without tumor were subtracted from the
signals with tumor.
4) Windowing: The process by taking small subsets of a
large dataset for processing and analysis is defined as
windowing. Gaussian window function was convoluted with
each signal to enhance the display of each subset of the signal.
Subtraction and convolution processes generate a higher peak
only at the location of tumor by reducing the environment Fig. 4 The S11 in frequency domain for the 106 antenna transition points based
response. on breast model with target
5) 2D Representation: All data sets were arranged into
matrix form. Then ―imagesc‖ function was used to transform
the matrix data into an image. After that, linear Interpolation
was used to enhance the final output image.

IV. RESULTS
As mentioned before, firstly the S-parameters (S11) for the
106 antenna position was collected. These signals were
represented in the frequency domain. Figures 4 and 5 show
the magnitude of the S11 for both models, with and without
target respectively. From the figures, it could be observed that
the positions where the antenna is on the axis of tumor, S11 of
the two simulations with and without tumor can be
differentiated. This difference was used to reconstruct the
image of the tumor.
Fig. 6 shows two signals at the same position from two
simulation models (with and without tumor). It’s obviously
that the magnitude of the two signals can be differentiated.
Before processing, the magnitude was turned from dB into
absolute value in order to apply the inverse fast fourier Fig. 5 The S11 in frequency domain for the 106 antenna transition points based
on breast model without target
transform. Fig. 7 shows the collected signals after absolute
process.
The sets of frequency domain data were transformed into
time domain to reconstruct an image. Fig. 8 shows the results
of applying the inverse fast fourier transform. Time domain
data were then smoothed as shown in fig. 9.
Signals which collected from simulation model without
tumor were subtracted from signals from model with tumor in
Fig. 6 Comparison of two S11 collected at the same position from the two Fig. 7 The S11 for the 106 antenna transition points after absolute process
models (with and without tumor) based on breast model with target

Fig. 8 The S11 in time domain for the 106 antenna transition points based on Fig. 9 The S11 in time domain for the 106 antenna transition points after
breast model with target smoothing process based on model with target

Fig. 10 The S11 in time domain for the 106 antenna transition points after Fig. 11 The S11 the 106 antenna transition points after applying gaussian
subtraction process window
 to obtain the reflected signal in 360‫ ﹾ‬surrounding the object
instead of planar scanning along a single axis. These scanning
methods can achieve higher accuracy on tumor sizing and
location defining using 3D representation
The authors would like to acknowledge Mr. Mazin. E. O.
Saad for his great contribution in this work.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
Fig. 12 Resulted image before interpolation
[5]
[6]
[7]
Tumor
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
Fig. 13 Resulted image after interpolation
V. CONCLUSIONS
A microwave imaging system was designed for early
detection of breast cancer. A human-like breast model with
target inside it was designed, based on the dielectric properties
of real woman breast. A circular patch antenna was used to
generate microwave signal. Therefore, CST software was used
for design and simulation. The method that used in this study
was to reconstruct an image from planar scanning which is
simple and efficient method. The frequency domain data was
being converted into time domain using the inverse fast
fourier transform. Subtraction and windowing methods were
being conduct successful in the enhancement of image quality
as the wanted information was not disappeared and the
unwanted noise was being reduced. The planar image that
was obtained showed the location of tumor successfully. In
future work, rotational and cylindrical scanning will be used
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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