Spectral response of a multi-layered sphere applied in microwave breast imaging

Microwave-based imaging techniques are plausible for breast cancer detection due to (a) breast being easily accessible to the microwave applicators, (b) the weak attenuation of microwave radiation in adipose tissue, (c) the contrast between the healthy and the malignant breast tissue. However, recently reported measurements show a contrast of 5:1 between adipose and malignant tissue and less than 10% between glandular and malignant tissue [1]. This low contrast presents a challenge for the microwave breast cancer monitoring. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports on fast estimation of whether such a low contrast makes the proposed imaging and detection method unfeasible.