Localization of breast tumor using holographic interferometry

For the purpose of locating breast lesions, we have utilized Holographic Interferometry (HI) to generate a fringe contour distortion superficial to an indwelling tumor. HI has been successfully utilized to examine material defects or dynamic characteristics of laminated structure(1). Application of HI technique in medical imaging has been reported(2). HI requires appropriate stressing mechanism to produce fringe patterns of reasonable density and contrast. Based on our research,it was found that pressure stressing has the advantages of providing both adequate density and patterns of fringe lines and an easily controlled stressing capacity. In our setup, both breasts of a subject hang within a Lucite pressure chamber while the intramural pressure of the chamber is raised by reducing volume of air inside. Our preliminary results found distorted fringe lines over breast lesions. The accuracy of the developed system in localizing breast lesions was determined by correlating results to those of X-ray mammography.