A microwave super-resolution imaging approach towards breast cancer margin mapping

Accurate characterisation of margins in excised breast cancer tumours is critical to the success of surgical interventions.

Yet margin status is typically confirmed post-operatively using histopathology.

Here we present a microwave single pixel imaging technique designed for use in intraoperative margin assessment.

By leveraging the photo-induced change in microwave transparency of a silicon modulator placed under the sample, we map the microwave reflectivity of tissue-mimicking phantoms with deeply sub-wavelength resolution, allowing hydration mapping across large areas (10 x 10 cm) at ~1 mm resolution.

We evaluate the discriminatory capability of our method using gelatine-based tumour phantoms with water-content variations designed to mimic the contrast between malignant tissue and tumour margins in resected breast specimens.

We demonstrate the capability to identify, locate and quantify inadequate margins up to the typically targeted minimum thickness of 2 mm.

Furthermore, using numerical modelling, we show that our approach is expected to be resilient to patient-specific tissue differences.

These results establish microwave single-pixel imaging as a promising route towards real-time intraoperative assessment of margins in excised breast tumours.