Enhanced UWB Radar Imaging of Breast Tumours

在欧洲，乳腺癌是年龄在35岁到55岁之间的女性最常见的死亡原因。在世界范围内，每13分钟就有一名妇女死于这种疾病。然而，乳腺癌是一种非常有存活率的疾病，但在早期阶段发现肿瘤是至关重要的。这需要一项针对所有妇女的全国筛查方案(以及妇女定期对其乳房进行自我检查)。不幸的是，现有的筛查技术并不十分理想。例如，X光只适用于年龄较大的女性，而且也相当不舒服。即使在这些年龄较大(绝经后)的女性中，它也有相当高的假阳性率(导致女性进行不必要的活检)和假阴性率(换句话说，它漏掉了一些肿瘤)。对于年轻女性来说，没有合适的常规筛查技术可用。这项建议的目的是继续研究基于UWB雷达的新成像方法。这会向乳房发出短暂的无线电波，并监听反射--这些无线电波是完全无害的，成像过程快速而舒适。目前，这种新的成像技术还处于初级阶段，刚刚开始在绝经后女性身上生成图像。有人建议，对该方法的改进将使其也适用于年轻女性，从而能够为所有女性创造一种廉价、快速和舒适的乳房成像方法。因为这种成像方法是无害的，可以根据需要重复进行多次，而且因为它将非常便宜，它可以在全科医生手术甚至面包车上进行，而不需要去医院。

Breast cancer is the commonest cause of death in women between the ages of 35 and 55 in Europe. Worldwide, a woman will die from the disease every 13 minutes. Breast cancer is, however, a very survivable disease but it is vital that the tumour is caught at an early stage. This requires a national screening programme for all women (in addition to regular self-examination by women of their breasts).Unfortunately the existing screening techniques are not very ideal. X-ray for example, is only suitable for older women and is also quite uncomfortable. Even in these older (post-menopausal) women, it has quite high false-positive rates (resulting in women having unnecessary biopsies) and false-negative rates (in other words, it misses some tumours).For younger women there is no suitable routine screening technique available,.The aim of this proposal is to continue research into a new imaging method based on UWB radar. This sends out a short burst of radio-waves into the breast and listens for reflections - these radio-waves are completely harmless and the imaging procedure is quick and comfortable.At the moment this new imaging technique is in its infancy and has just begun to generate images in post-menopausal women. It is proposed that enhancements to the method will enable it to be applied to younger women as well, enabling the creation of a cheap, quick and comfortable breast imaging method for all women.Because the imaging method is harmless, it could be repeated as often as necessary and because it will be very cheap, it could be based in a GP surgery or even a van, rather than requiring a visit to hospital.