A Microstrip Patch Antenna Design for Breast Cancer Detection

Breast cancer affects many women and has fatal conclusions if it does not cure correctly. Early diagnosis is the most important parameter to detect and interfere with cancer tissue. Some of methods for breast cancer detection are X-ray mammography, MRI and ultrasound. However, they have some limitations. For example; between 4 and 34 % of all breast cancers are missed because of poor malignant/benign cancer tissue contrast. Microwave imaging to detect breast cancer is a promising method and there are many works in this area. All materials have different permittivity and conductivity. In this work, a 3D breast structure has different permittivity and conductivity is modelled in HFSS by using Finite Element Method (FEM) to solve electromagnetic field values and a microstrip patch antenna operating at 2.45 GHz is designed and substrate material is FR4 (epsilon(r) = 4.4 F/m). Slotting on microstrip patch and modifying ground plane, imaging quality is increased. About this, electric field, magnetic field distribution and current density on the antenna are evaluated. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.