A Combined Experiment and Modeling Approach for Advancing Terahertz Imaging of Three Dimensional Breast Cancer Tumors

提案标题：一种用于推进三维乳腺癌肿瘤太赫兹成像的联合实验和建模方法。机构：阿肯色大学该项目将在癌症组织的成像和传感应用方面做出重要贡献，并将在诊断癌症切除的乳房样本方面取得重大进展。它将产生重大的社会影响，并将在医疗保健方面节省大量资金。先进的太赫兹成像算法将影响太赫兹技术在国防、国家安全和工业中的其他应用。许多被诊断为早期乳腺癌的女性选择了保乳肿块切除术。不幸的是，在20-70%的肿块切除手术中，肿瘤的阳性边缘在第一次手术中无法识别，必须进行第二次手术才能切除剩余的癌症。手术之间的这种延迟增加了乳腺癌治疗的成本和风险。这项拟议的研究将通过推进肿瘤边缘评估，减少癌症复发和死亡率，从而提高乳腺癌患者的生活质量，对女性S的健康产生重大影响。这项研究的成功将导致二次手术率的降低，从而降低医疗保险成本。该项目还将通过让研究生和本科生参与太赫兹技术的实践培训来影响教育和研究项目，并将为代表不足的学生和少数族裔学生提供独特的培训机会，这些学生将从阿肯色大学成熟的多样性项目中招募。先进的太赫兹成像算法将极大地惠及国防、国家安全和半导体行业的其他潜在应用。这项研究的目标是推进太赫兹成像，用于在保乳肿块切除术中实时评估乳腺癌切除的肿瘤边缘。太赫兹技术最近已经成为一种很有前途的医学成像方式，因为它提供了对生物组织的非破坏性、非侵入性和实时评估。太赫兹成像使用电磁辐射，可以检索癌症组织的结构和化学属性的信息，这些信息可能是其他技术看不到的。建议的方法将结合电磁建模、太赫兹测量和图像重建算法来提供对肿瘤边缘的定量分析。采用时域有限差分法作为主要的电磁模型，模拟太赫兹与肿瘤组织的相互作用。德拜模型将利用各种组织样本的实验光谱测量来开发。这个模型的使用将促进对太赫兹波与真实的、三维的、高度不均匀的肿瘤组织相互作用所涉及的基本物理的理解。太赫兹技术在评估乳腺癌肿瘤边缘方面的成功，将为未来强大和准确的成像技术奠定基础，而不是在术中使用。这项拟议的研究将为整合工程知识和医学成像研究开辟未来的机会。

Proposal Title: A Combined Experiment and Modeling Approach for Advancing Terahertz Imaging of Three Dimensinal Breast Cancer Tumors.Institution: Unniversity of ArkansasThis project will make important contributions in imaging and sensing applications of cancerous tissue and will result in major advances in diagnosing cancerous excised breast samples . It will have a major societal impact and will result in significant savings in health care. Advancing THz imaging algorithms will impact other applications of THz technology in defense, national security and industry.Many women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer choose to have a breast-conserving lumpectomy. Unfortunately, in 20-70% of lumpectomy surgeries, the tumor has positive margins that cannot be identified during the first surgery, and a second surgery must be performed to remove the remaining cancer. This delay between surgeries adds to both the cost and risk of breast cancer treatment. The proposed research will significantly impact women?s health by advancing the assessment of tumor margins, reducing cancer recurrence and mortality, and thereby improving the quality of life for breast cancer patients. The success of this research will lead to a decrease in the rate of second surgeries and hence a reduction in health insurance cost. The project will also impact education and research programs by involving graduate and undergraduate students in hands-on training with terahertz technology and will provide unique training opportunities for underrepresented and minority students who will be recruited from well-established diversity programs at the University of Arkansas. Advancing terahertz imaging algorithms will greatly benefit other potential applications in defense, national security, and the semiconductor industry. The goal of this research is to advance terahertz imaging for real-time assessment of excised breast cancer tumor margins in breast-conserving lumpectomy surgery. Terahertz technology has recently emerged as a promising medical imaging modality as it provides non-destructive, non-invasive, and real-time evaluation of biological tissue. Terahertz imaging uses electromagnetic radiation that can retrieve information of the structural and chemical attributes of cancer tissue that may not be visible with other techniques. The proposed approach will incorporate electromagnetic modeling, terahertz measurements, and image reconstruction algorithms to offer quantitative analysis of tumor margins. The finite difference time domain method will be employed as the primary electromagnetic model to simulate the terahertz interaction with cancer tissue. The Debye model will be developed using the experimental spectroscopy measurements of various tissue samples. The use of this model will advance the understanding of the fundamental physics involved in terahertz wave interaction with realistic, three dimensional, highly heterogeneous tumor tissues. The success of using terahertz technology in the assessment of breast cancer tumor margins will lay the groundwork for future robust and accurate imaging techniques than can be used intraoperatively. The proposed research will open future opportunities for integrating engineering knowledge and medical imaging research.