High-Frequency (30 MHz–6 GHz) Breast Tissue Characterization Stabilized by Suction Force for Intraoperative Tumor Margin Assessment

oleh: Hadi Mokhtari Dowlatabad, Amir Mamdouh, Narges Yousefpour, Reihane Mahdavi, Ashkan Zandi, Parisa Hoseinpour, Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Moosavi-Kiasari, Fereshte Abbasvandi, Yasin Kordehlachin, Mohammad Parniani, Karim Mohammadpour-Aghdam, Pooya Faranoush, Mohammad Reza Foroughi-Gilvaee, Mohammad Abdolahad

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-01-01

Deskripsi

A gigahertz (GHz) range antenna formed by a coaxial probe has been applied for sensing cancerous breast lesions in the scanning platform with the assistance of a suction tube. The sensor structure was a planar central layer and a metallic sheath of size of 3 cm<sup>2</sup> connected to a network analyzer (keySight FieldFox N9918A) with operational bandwidth up to 26.5 GHz. Cancer tumor cells have significantly higher water content (as a dipolar molecule) than normal breast cells, changing their polarization responses and dielectric losses to incoming GHz-based stimulation. Principal component analysis named <i>S</i><sub>11</sub>, related to the dispersion ratio of the input signal, is used as a parameter to identify malignant tumor cells in a mouse model (in vivo) and tumor specimens of breast cancer patients (in vitro) (both central and marginal parts). The results showed that <i>S</i><sub>11</sub> values in the frequency range from 5 to 6 GHz were significantly higher in cancer-involved breast lesions. Histopathological analysis was the gold standard for achieving the <i>S</i><sub>11</sub> calibration to distinguish normal from cancerous lesions. Our calibration on tumor specimens presented 82% positive predictive value (PPV), 100% negative predictive value (NPV), and 86% accuracy. Our goal is to apply this system as an in vivo non-invasive tumor margin scanner after further investigations in the future.