Breast cancer detection in highly dense numerical breast phantoms using time reversal

In this paper we investigate the detection of breast cancer using two-dimensional slices of realistic numerical phantoms employing time reversal microwave imaging. We used maximum-likelihood estimation coupled with time reversal technique to detect and estimate the location of tumor using FDTD based breast phantoms that contain dense fibroglandular tissue clutter. We show that time reversal maximum-likelihood estimation can detect and accurately localize tumors even in highly dense breasts where the dielectric contrast between healthy dense breast tissue and cancerous lesions is quite low without requiring any contrast enhancing agents.