Open AccessBreast lesion detection through MammoWave device: Empirical detection capability assessment of microwave images’ parameters
Author(s) -
Lorenzo Sani,
Alessandro Vispa,
Riccardo Loretoni,
Michele Duranti,
Navid Ghavami,
Daniel Álvarez Sánchez-Bayuela,
Stefano Caschera,
Martina Paoli,
Alessandra Bigotti,
Mario Badia,
Michele Scorsipa,
Giovanni Raspa,
Mohammad Ghavami,
Gianluigi Tiberi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0250005
Subject(s) - receiver operating characteristic , microwave imaging , homogeneity (statistics) , rule of thumb , microwave , computer science , artificial intelligence , pattern recognition (psychology) , mammography , binary number , breast cancer , mathematics , medicine , algorithm , machine learning , telecommunications , arithmetic , cancer
MammoWave is a microwave imaging device for breast lesions detection, which operates using two (azimuthally rotating) antennas without any matching liquid. Images, subsequently obtained by resorting to Huygens Principle, are intensity maps, representing the homogeneity of tissues’ dielectric properties. In this paper, we propose to generate, for each breast, a set of conductivity weighted microwave images by using different values of conductivity in the Huygens Principle imaging algorithm. Next, microwave images’ parameters, i.e. features , are introduced to quantify the non-homogenous behaviour of the image. We empirically verify on 103 breasts that a selection of these features may allow distinction between breasts with no radiological finding (NF) and breasts with radiological findings (WF), i.e. with lesions which may be benign or malignant. Statistical significance was set at p <0.05. We obtained single features Area Under the receiver operating characteristic Curves (AUCs) spanning from 0.65 to 0.69. In addition, an empirical rule-of-thumb allowing breast assessment is introduced using a binary score S operating on an appropriate combination of features. Performances of such rule-of-thumb are evaluated empirically, obtaining a sensitivity of 74%, which increases to 82% when considering dense breasts only.