A Prototype System for Early-Stage Breast Cancer Detection

The early detection of breast cancer is very important. The final goal of this study is to develop an inexpensive portable device for simply detecting the existence of breast cancer using microwaves. In this study, we proposed a detection algorithm and the system configuration of such a device. The feasibility of the proposed method was investigated by numerical simulation and actual measurement. A prototype sensing module was fabricated, and the measurement results for tumor phantoms were presented. The measurement results showed that the prototype sensing module worked well, and the simulation results revealed that the detection rate of the device could be about 60% for a 4 mm tumor and almost 100% for a 6 mm tumor. The proposed device can be used for the self-diagnosis of breast cancer. Further study is required to reduce the size of the sensing module.