An integrated simulation approach for contrast-enhanced microwave induced thermo-acoustic tomography

Microwave induced thermo-acoustic tomography (MITAT) has great potential in early breast cancer detection because it combines the advantages of microwave imaging and ultrasound imaging. Many developments of MITAT including hardware and image reconstructed methods have been achieved. In these achievements, accuracy and efficient simulations are necessary. The simulations can provide the anticipation for the progress and evaluate the performance of the developments. In this paper, considering the multiple physical characters of MITAT, an integrated simulation approach which combines finite integration time domain (FITD) and k-space pseudo-spectral (PS) method is proposed for the heterogeneous thermo-acoustic imaging. For evaluating the effectiveness of carbon nanotubes for the contrast-enhanced thermo-acoustic imaging, a simulation for the breast cancer detection is performed.