This paper presents preliminary results of an innovative microwave imaging apparatus for breast lesions detection. Specifically, a Huygens Principle based method is employed to process the microwave signals and to build the respective microwave images. The apparatus has been first tested on phantoms. Next, its performance has been verified through clinical examinations on 22 healthy breasts and on 29 breast having lesions, using as gold standard the output of the radiologist study review obtained using conventional techniques. Specifically, we introduce a metric, which is the ratio between maximum and average of the image intensity (MAX/AVG). We found that MAX/AVG of microwave images can be used for classifying breasts containing lesions. In addition, using MAX/AVG as classification parameter, receiver operating characteristic curves have been empirically determined. Furthermore, for one randomly selected breast having lesion, we have demonstrated that the localization of the inclusion acquired through microwave imaging is compatible with mammography images. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this study, we present the initial results of the Clinical Validation of a Novel Microwave Apparatus for Testing Breast Integrity. Huygens Principle is used to process microwave signals and construct a correspondent image. We compare microwave images with respect to echography and/or mammogram diagnosis. From the microwave images obtained by the first 8 subjects, it is possible to conclude that microwave images of non-healthy subjects have a signal to clutter ratio approximately 10% greater than that of the healthy subjects. Moreover, for one subject (arbitrarily selected) we also show that the localization of the inclusion obtained through microwave imaging is in agreement with mammography images.