Ricardo Eleutério, student at NOVA's Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, with th project "Microwave Imaging of the Axilla to Aid Breast Cancer Diagnosis".
Microwave Imaging is one of the most promising imaging modalities for breast cancer early screening and monitoring. The study developed by Ricardo Eleutério tests the feasibility of imaging the axilla region by means of an Ultra-Wideband Microwave Imaging radar system. This approach involves illuminating the axilla with an Ultra-Wideband pulse, and recording the resulting backscattered signals. Subsequently, these recorded signals are processed: firstly, a skin artefact removal is applied to remove the skin reflection; secondly, a beamformer is used to spatially focus the backscattered signals so that returns from high scattering regions (e.g. metastasised lymph nodes) add coherently and returns from clutter add incoherently; and thirdly an image of the dielectric scatterers in the axilla is created.
Source: http://www.fraunhofer.pt/en/fraunhofer_portugal/news/news_archive/fraunh...