UWB Space-Time Beamforming for Patient-Specific Microwave Hyperthermia Treatment of Breast Cancer: 3-D Computational Study using Anatomically Realistic Breast Phantoms

We investigate the feasibility of non-invasive ultra-wideband microwave hyperthermia treatment of breast cancer using three-dimensional (3-D) breast phantoms with anatomical and dielectric-properties realism. Space-time transmit beamforming is used to generate the signals transmitted by a hemispherical antenna array into the breast. The performance of this approach is evaluated for beamformers designed with either an ideal propagation model that is exactly matched to the actual patient, to establish a best-performance baseline, or a simpler homogeneous propagation model for comparison. 3-D electromagnetic and thermal FDTD simulations demonstrate the focusing and selective heating efficacy for two classes of breast tissue compositions.