A Prototype Microwave System for 3D Brain Stroke Imaging.

This work focuses on brain stroke imaging via microwave technology. In particular, the open issue of monitoring patients after stroke onset is addressed here in order to provide clinicians with a tool to control the effectiveness of administered therapies during the follow-up period. In this paper, a novel prototype is presented and characterized. The device is based on a low-complexity architecture which makes use of a minimum number of properly positioned and designed antennas placed on a helmet. It exploits a differential imaging approach and provides 3D images of the stroke. Preliminary experiments involving a 3D phantom filled with brain tissue-mimicking liquid confirm the potential of the technology in imaging a spherical target mimicking a stroke of a radius equal to 1.25 cm.

Anthropomorphic Breast and Head Phantoms for Microwave Imaging.

This paper deals with breast and head phantoms fabricated from 3D-printed structures and liquid mixtures whose complex permittivities are close to that of the biological tissues within a large frequency band. The goal is to enable an easy and safe manufacturing of stable-in-time detailed anthropomorphic phantoms dedicated to the test of microwave imaging systems to assess the performances of the latter in realistic configurations before a possible clinical application to breast cancer imaging or brain stroke monitoring. The structure of the breast phantom has already been used by several laboratories to test their measurement systems in the framework of the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action TD1301-MiMed. As for the tissue mimicking liquid mixtures, they are based upon Triton X-100 and salted water. It has been proven that such mixtures can dielectrically mimic the various breast tissues. It is shown herein that they can also accurately mimic most of the head tissues and that, given a binary fluid mixture model, the respective concentrations of the various constituents needed to mimic a particular tissue can be predetermined by means of a standard minimization method.