Temperature-dependent Dielectric Properties of Breast Tissue Phantoms for Hyperthermia Applications

Microwave diagnostic and treatment technologies for breast cancer have been a popular research interest among researchers. To test the proposed systems many different tissue mimicking phantom materials have been proposed in the literature for testing of microwave breast cancer imaging and hyperthermia devices. One popular tissue mimicking phantom, named oil-in-gelatin dispersion phantoms, are used widely to replicate the dielectric properties different tissue types. These phantoms are used for testing of implantable antennas, microwave imaging devices, and hyperthermia devices. However, the temperature dependent dielectric properties of the phantoms have not been investigated in the literature. This work investigates the dielectric properties of the phantoms with respect to temperature to validate the phantoms can replicate the temperature-dependent dielectric properties of the tissues.