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Hyperthermic procedure to treat cancer using microstrip patch antenna array

Thesis · March 2022

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19514.26567

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 Hyperthermic procedure to treat cancer using
biomedical antenna

A PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by
Rishav Raj

Under the guidance of

Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Mishra

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

of
Bachelor of Technology
in
ELECTRONICS & TELECOMMUNICATION
ENGINEERING

of

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY
Bhubaneswar (Odisha)
March, 2022
 ABSTRACT
Anatomical variation in the human body presents a complex challenge to
design a universal antenna for all. The presence of the human body in close
proximity to the antenna also presents a challenge as the near field strongly
couples with a lossy medium. Other challenges include design of an antenna
that is small in size without affecting its radiation pattern, efficiency, gain etc.
In this work design of a biomedical antenna for cancer treatment using voxal
parameters for doing SAR (specific absorption rate) analysis using fragmented
structures. A parametric model of skin, fat and muscle implantable antenna is
to be designed and to analyze return loss, impedance matching, gain VSWR
and radiation patterns etc. Biomedical telemetry allows the transmission of
physiological signals. Implantable patch antennas are gaining attention and are
becoming more of a choice for implantable medical devices that use mostly RF
telemetry. In this work, a state of the art design for a rectangular flexible patch
antenna array is proposed. The operation band for the antenna is chosen in the
Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band (2.4-2.4835 GHz). The tiny
dimension of the antenna allows the antenna to be highly flexible and provides
excellent results even at extreme bent conditions. For the simulation
environment, various models have been proposed; at the end a homogenous
human tissue model was used, where the antenna was encapsulated at a certain
distance from the phantom. CST microwave studio was chosen to design and
simulate the antenna. Several performance parameters were taken, such as the
operating resonant frequency, the return loss, radiation pattern, specific
absorption rate (SAR) and also sensitivity of the antenna when introduced to
bending.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my project guide Dr. Sanjeev

Kumar Mishra sir whose endless cooperation guidance has helped us in
the successful completion of this project.

I wish to extend my deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to faculty

members of the department of Electronics and Telecommunication
Engineering for their valuable and scholarly guidance, constant
supervision and timely advice, also to the non-teaching of the dept. of
ETC without whom my endeavors would not have been successful.

I take this opportunity to express heartfelt thanks to all my friends and

my family who have always extended their hands for help and have
played a crucial role for the completion of this project

Rishav Raj

B218062
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Breast Cancer Detection Techniques
a. Microwave Imaging Technique
b. Breast Self-Examination (BSE) and Clinical Breast Examination
(CBE)
c. Breast Ultrasound
d. Computerized Tomography (CT)
e. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
f. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
3. Hyperthermia Cancer Treatment procedure
a. Tissue segmentation for dielectric and thermal model generation
b. Electromagnetic field simulation
c. Temperature calculation
d. Phase-amplitude optimization
4. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)
5. CST M-Physics Studio
a. Mechanical Solver
b. Thermal and Conjugate Heat Transfer Solvers
i. Background Properties
ii. Material Properties
iii. Boundary Condition
iv. Sources and Loads
v. 3-D Field Properties
6. Literature Survey
7. Inferences
8. Problem statement / Objective
9. Breast Phantom Design Procedure
10. Patch Array Antenna Design
 11. Simulation Result

Introduction
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and according to the
World Health Organization (WHO), it is accountable for most deaths. Cancer is
a name given to a large group of diseases characterized by the growth of
abnormal cells beyond their usual boundaries, in a multistage process. These
cells then can spread to other parts of the body, causing the whole body to be
affected. There are some of most common types of cancer: Lung Cancer, Breast
Cancer, Colorectal, Prostate, Skin cancer, Stomach Cancer etc.

A tumor can be divided into two categories, benign or malignant. Benign

tumors are not cancerous. Malignant tumors are cancerous and can extend their
growth to other body parts. When cancer spreads fully in any part of the body
or also to other parts, it becomes difficult to save the life of a patient. Hence
early detection is all important for the survival of patients.

Breast cancer is one of the most common deaths causing cancer among women
all over the world. The term “breast cancer” defines a malignant tumor that has
developed from cells in the breast. With time, cancerous cells can occupy
nearby healthy breast tissue and make their way into the underarm lymph node.
Once they get into the lymph nodes, then they have a pathway into other parts
of the body. There are four stages of breast cancer. The breast cancer stage
states how much the cancer cells have spread beyond the original tumor.
Chances of cure and survival decreases as stage of cancer increases from 1st to
4th. At 4th stage cancer spreads beyond the breast and to other parts of the
body, most commonly it goes to the lungs, bones and it also spreads to the
brain. Therefore, early detection of breast cancer is indispensable for fast cure
and survival of patients.
 Breast Cancer Detection Techniques
The cancer imaging technique is decisive or crucial for early breast cancer detection.
Several Breast Cancer Detection Techniques are as follows -

1. Breast Self-Examination (BSE) and Clinical Breast Examination (CBE)

2. Breast Ultrasound
3. Computerized Tomography (CT)
4. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
5. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
6. Microwave Imaging Technique

Microwave Imaging (MI) to detect breast tumor is a promising method to overcome

the issues with above techniques. It has low cost, non-ionizing radiations, high
sensitivity in detecting tumors and provides comfort to patient. MI employs microstrip
patch antenna for tumor detection. Microwave imaging is divided into two categories
as Tomography and Radar based microwave imaging. Microwave Imaging (MWI)
system, consists of a transmitter microwave system to emit signals inwards the breast
and a receiver to detect those backscattered signals after they interact with the breast.
The principle behind MWI, as shown in Fig.1, is the contrast between dielectric
properties of tumors tissues and healthy breast tissue.
Microstrip patch antenna is a substantial technical evolution tool which is applied in
many practical medical applications, such as medical implants, wireless monitoring
applications, microwave imaging and many other on body applications. Electric field,
magnetic field and current density parameters show a detectable difference for
simulation of proposed antenna with breast model having no tumor and with breast
model consisting of tumor. A significant difference was found in current density and
SAR for breast phantom with tumor and without tumor.
 Hyperthermia Cancer Treatment procedure
Hyperthermic perfusion therapy – Hyperthermic perfusion therapy is the fifth
proven effective treatment for cancer after surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy
and biotherapy. The mechanism of therapy is to heat a large volume of
perfusate containing chemotherapeutic drugs to a certain temperature and
perfuse the patient's body cavity (thoracic cavity, abdominal cavity or bladder)
continuously at constant temperature for a certain period of time, through the
synergistic effect of thermochemistry and perfusion fluid circulation perfusion
flushing. Brushing can effectively kill and remove residual cancer cells and
small lesions in the body cavity. The core requirement of thermal perfusion
therapeutic instrument is to realize accurate temperature measurement (+0.1℃)
and accurate constant temperature (+0.1℃).

Hyperthermia Treatment – Hyperthermia is extremely exploited to acquire

therapeutic level of the tumor through increasing its temperature at which the
malignant tissues are heat-dependent or destroyed as a result of the increased
local temperature above 41°C. The heating is an effective technique to increase
the blood flow rate in tumor which is inherently low. hyperthermia treatment
comes in three different categories depending on the tumor position, namely
whole-body hyperthermia, regional hyperthermia and local hyperthermia. The
EM applicators are divided into two different types, external and interstitial
applicators. The external applicators are placed on the body surface where the
tumors are located nearby while the interstitial ones are inserted inside the body
at the tumor position. Hyperthermia is one of the modalities for cancer
treatment, utilizing the difference of thermal sensitivity between tumor and
normal tissue. Here, the tumor is heated up to the therapeutic temperature
between 42 C–45 C without overheating the surrounding normal tissues. We
can enhance the treatment effect of other cancer treatments such as
radiotherapy and chemotherapy by using them together with the hyperthermia.
The interstitial microwave hyperthermia is applied to localized tumor by
inserting thin microwave antennas into the target. Active treatment control is
essential to reduce the influence of hot spots and is highly dependent on
reliable temperature information during hyperthermia as well as a good spatial
power control to optimize the temperature distribution. Spatial power control
depends on the number of antennas and the operating frequency: the larger the
number of antennas and the higher the frequency, the better the steering
possibilities. A higher frequency provides a smaller focus volume, but is
associated with a lower penetration depth and hence a larger number of
antennas is needed for adequate heating of the of deep-seated tumors.
Moreover, the large number of degrees of freedom, i.e., the amplitudes and
phases of the individual antennas, make it very difficult for the operator to
determine the optimal steering strategy by intuition or trial and error.
Therefore, hyperthermia treatment planning (HTP) is an essential instrument in
modern locoregional radiofrequency hyperthermia treatments. With treatment
planning, power absorption and/or temperature patterns in the patient are
simulated to help the operator visualize the effect of different steering
strategies. In addition, numerical optimization techniques predict
phase-amplitude settings for optimal tumor heating, while accounting for
user-defined constraints on temperatures or power absorption levels in normal
tissue.

In the regular workflow of treatment planning for regional radiofrequency

hyperthermia, the following main steps can be distinguished:

i. Tissue segmentation for dielectric and thermal model generation

ii. Electromagnetic field simulation
iii. Temperature calculation
iv. Phase-amplitude optimization

For each step, dedicated simulation techniques are required and a wide variety
of distinct methods are available.
Tissue segmentation for dielectric model generation – Tissue segmentation is a
very important aspect of HTP. Dielectric properties, which determine the
energy absorption in tissue, vary significantly between different tissues and
organs in the human body. Requirements to normal tissue delineation for HTP
are higher than for radiotherapy treatment planning, because of the large
variation in dielectric and thermal properties between different organs and
tissue regions, and in particular the electromagnetic boundary conditions (4th
Maxwell equation). After segmentation dielectric tissue properties from
literature are assigned, which show a large spread (~50 %). This uncertainty in
dielectric tissue properties yields an inaccuracy of ~20 % in both specific
absorption rate (SAR) and temperature predictions. This demonstrates the need
for patient-specific dielectric properties to achieve accurate treatment planning.

a) K – Thermal Conductivity is the rate at which heat is transferred by

conduction through a unit cross-section area of a material, when a
temperature gradient exits perpendicular to the area.
b) C – Specific Heat Capacity is defined as the quantity of heat (J)
absorbed per unit mass (kg) of the material when its temperature
increases 1 K (or 1 °C), and its units are J/(kg K) or J/(kg °C).
Q=mC T (i)
Where Q is the heat Energy and delta T is change in temperature.
 c) B – Blood perfusion coefficient. Perfusion is measured as the rate at
which blood is delivered to tissue, or volume of blood per unit time
(blood flow) per unit tissue mass.
d) Qm – Metabolic heat generation coefficient. n tissues, heat is generated
by metabolism and blood perfusion, and the heat, that is, generated
during metabolic processes such as growth and energy production of the
living system, is defined as metabolic heat generation.

Electromagnetic field simulation – To avoid reflections of the electromagnetic

waves at the boundaries of the computational domain, absorbing boundary
conditions are essential.

a.) Differential Techniques – The finite difference time domain method

(FDTD) requires discretization of the computational domain into
rectangular voxels. For accurate EM-simulations at least 10–20
voxels per wavelength should be used. The standard FDTD method
is based on the Yee cell, in which the electric field components are
located at the edges of the voxels and the magnetic field components
are located at the faces, or vice versa. The propagation of the
electromagnetic field is calculated for successive time steps, until
steady state is reached. The FDTD method is a very popular method
because of its efficiency in terms of memory use and computation
time, but a drawback is the occurrence of so-called staircasing at
highly irregular and geometrically detailed tissue interfaces. The use
 of very high resolution, a nonuniform grid or post-processing
interpolation techniques (in case of contour-based segmentation) can
reduce these artefacts, although at the cost of increased complexity
and computation time. The FE method is also based on differential
technique. The FE method has the advantage of better accuracy at
irregular tissue interfaces, compared to FDTD. However, grid
generation is more complicated and dedicated mesh generation
software is required to subdivide the computational domain into
tetrahedral (or hexahedral) elements.
b.) Integral equations method – The finite integration technique (FIT)
can be considered as the generalization of the FDTD and resembles
FE. The integral equations are transformed into a set of matrix
equations on an orthogonal dual grid pair. The electric grid voltage
and magnetic facet flux are defined on the primary grid, whilst
magnetic grid voltages and electric facet fluxes are defined on the
second grid. The transient solver is based on the solution of these
matrix equations, which yields a fully explicit time-stepping
procedure as in the FDTD method. The FIT is very flexible in
geometric modeling and handling of boundaries.

In the project I have used the CST studio electromagnetic field solver using the
Time domain solver to solve the Maxwell's equations to find the power density
then imported this solution to thermal solver in CST M-physics studio to
calculate the temperature distribution.

Temperature calculation –
k-Wave is an open source MATLAB toolbox designed for the time-domain
simulation of propagating acoustic waves in 1D, 2D, or 3D [1]. The toolbox
has a wide range of functionality, but at its heart is an advanced numerical
model that can account for both linear and nonlinear wave propagation, an
arbitrary distribution of heterogeneous material parameters, and power law
acoustic absorption.
bioheatExact Compute exact solution to Penne’s' bioheat equation in
homogeneous media.
DESCRIPTION:
Bio-Heat-Exact calculates the exact solution to Penne’s' bioheat equation in a
homogeneous medium on a uniform Cartesian grid using a Fourier-based
Green's function solution assuming a periodic boundary condition [1]. The
function supports inputs in 1D, 2D, and 3D. The exact equation solved is given
by
dT/dt = D * d^2T/dx^2 - P * (T - Ta) + S
where the coefficients are defined below. Penne’s' bioheat equation is often
given in the alternative form
P0 * C0 * dT/dt = Kt * d^2T/dx^2 - Pb * Wb * Cb * (T - Ta) + Q
T: temperature [degC]
C0: tissue specific heat capacity [J/(kg. K)]
P0: tissue density [kg/m^3]
Kt: tissue thermal conductivity [W/(m.K)]
Pb: blood density [kg/m^3]
Wb: blood perfusion rate [1/s]
Ta: blood arterial temperature [degC]
Cb: blood specific heat capacity [J/(kg.K)]
Q: volume rate of heat deposition [W/m^3]

In this case, the function inputs are calculated by

D = Kt / (P0 * C0);
P = Pb * Wb * Cb / (P0 * C0);
S = Q / (P0 * C0);
If the perfusion coefficient P is set to zero, bioheatExact calculates the exact
solution to the heat equation in a homogeneous medium.
My present research is regarding how to mathematically prove the thermal
simulation result in CST for that I am using Matlab (mathematical
programming tool) to solve the Penne’s bioheat equation.
Phase and amplitude optimization –

Phase conjugation is a physical transformation of a wave field where the

resulting field has a reversed propagation direction but keeps its amplitude and
phases. The phase of the antennas should be set such that the fields
constructively add at the tumor location and destructively add elsewhere
leading to rise in the temperature at the tumor location which is suitable for
hyperthermic treatment. By carefully setting the phase values for the antennas
the waves focus at a point in the near field region that is between the aperture
and the actual focal point of the antenna. Due to this very less field is found at
the far field region and most of the field is in the near field region of interest.

Specific Absorption Rate

The Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is defined as the time derivative of the
incremental energy (dW) absorbed by an incremental mass (dm) contained in a
volume element (dV) of a given mass density (p).

(ii)

SAR can be related to the electric field at a point by

(iii)

Where sigma is the conductivity of the tissue (S/m), is the mass density of the tissue (kg/m3)
and E is the rms electric field strength (V/m).
SAR is a parameter that is the basis for the maximum permissible exposure (MPE) in
biological tissues under electromagnetic fields. Both the absorbed power and SAR are in rms
values. The total absorbed power is given by

(iv)
Relation of SAR with specific heat capacity

(v)
 CST M-Physics Studio
CST M-Physics Studio is a software package from the CST Studio Suite family
which allows thermal and mechanical simulations. It simplifies the process of
defining the structure by providing a powerful solid modeling front end, which
is based on the ACIS modeling kernel. Strong graphic feedback simplifies the
definition of your device even further. After the component has been modeled,
a fully automatic meshing procedure is applied before a simulation engine is
started. A key feature of CST M-Physics Studio is its tight integration with the
other CST Studio products. This allows an easy-to-use workflow for coupled
EM-Multiphysics simulations. A further outstanding feature is the full
parameterization of the structure modeler, which enables the use of variables in
the definition of your component. In combination with the built-in optimizer
and parameter sweep tools, CST M-Physics Studio is capable of analyzing and
designing thermal and mechanical aspects of devices.

Though there are Mechanical and Thermal solvers available in CST. I will
explain the relevant part that is related to my project.

Thermal and Conjugate Heat Transfer Solvers –

a. Background Properties –
For thermal problems, the background material is set to Air (thermal
conductivity: 0.026 WK-1m-1, heat capacity: 1.005kJK-1kg-1, density:
1.204 kg/m3 and dynamic viscosity: 1.84e-5 Pa.s at normal conditions).
These settings may be changed by selecting the Material type (Normal is
advisable in most cases), afterwards opening the material dialog box by
pressing Properties... and select the Thermal property page.
The easiest way to assign the necessary values is to copy the properties
from an existing material in the material library. Press the Copy
Properties from Material… button in the General tab, select [Load from
Material Library…] in the Copy Properties from Material dialog box.
 Choose the desired material from the list.
b. Material Properties –
It is necessary to specify a thermal conductivity to perform a thermal or
conjugate heat transfer simulation. In the Thermal tab please specify a
thermal conductivity for your material in W K-1 m-1 in case a Normal
or Anisotropic thermal material Type has been selected. If a temperature
dependent thermal conductivity, heat capacity and/or blood flow
coefficient should be taken into account, activate the checkbox
Nonlinear and define the material curve by entering the corresponding
dialog box via Properties…
Please note that the conjugate heat transfer solver only supports
isotropic and constant material parameters.
If you select a PTC (Perfect Thermal Conductor) type, an infinite
thermal conductivity is assumed. A body with PTC material assigned
always has a uniform temperature.
c. Boundary Condition –
The boundary conditions for the thermal and conjugate heat transfer
solver can be defined in the Thermal Boundaries tab of the Boundary
Conditions dialog box (Simulation: Settings Boundaries).
For Steady State and Transient Thermal Solvers:
The thermal boundary offers the following choices of boundary
conditions
The following table shows an overview, where T is the temperature and
Q is the heat flux density:

The picture below illustrates an example of how thermal fields are

influenced by the different boundary types. It shows a metal sphere at a
constant temperature, which is surrounded by a material with constant
thermal conductivity.
d. Sources and Loads –
The thermal and conjugate heat transfer solvers can handle several types
of sources or loss mechanisms, which are listed below:
Temperature Source –
This source is available via Simulation: Sources and Loads 
Temperature Source. This source type can be assigned to a surface of an
object with PTC material properties or any other material with non-zero
thermal conductivity. You can choose between a fixed temperature value
and a floating temperature. A floating temperature is a uniform
temperature distribution with zero heat flow from or into the associated
surface. Besides, for the transient solver an initial temperature source
can be defined, which is taken into account only for generation of the
initial temperature distribution and ignored during the transient solution.

Heat Source –
This source is available via Simulation: Sources and Loads => Heat
Source.
When assigned to a solid with a non-zero thermal conductivity source
and that is neither PTC nor PEC it defines the thermal power evenly
released within the solid. The user may define the total power released
within the solid (Total) or the volume heat density (Density).
When assigned to a solid that is either PTC or PEC it defines the total
heat flow coming from the solid surface. Therefore, a heat source with
zero heat flow and a floating temperature are identical.
Thermal Loss Distribution –
This source is available via Simulation: Sources and Loads => Thermal
Losses . Thermal losses can occur inside materials with finite
conductivity, on surfaces of good conductors, inside dispersive materials
or at materials where particles hit the surface. These loss distributions
can be imported and used as thermal sources inside thermally
conductive materials. If previously calculated loss distributions are
present, you can edit setting by reopening the dialog box (Simulation:
Sources and Load => Thermal Losses).
Thermal Surface Properties –
Thermal surface properties are available via Simulation: Sources and
Loads => Thermal Surface. Thermal surface properties can be assigned
to surfaces of thermally conductive materials. A thermal surface
property definition describes the radiation and convection losses from a
surface.
Thermal Contact Properties –
Thermal contact properties can be defined via Simulation: Sources and
Loads => Contact Properties. A contact item is equivalent to a thin layer
of thermally conductive material at the interface between two (or
several) solids. It can be characterized either by lumped parameters
(absolute thermal resistance [K/W] or thermal resistance per unit area
[K∙m2/W] as well as thermal capacitance [J/K]), or by its thickness and
the thermal properties of material assigned.

3-D Field Properties –

In contrast to steady state solvers, field distributions delivered by
transient solvers need to be requested by the user in advance by defining
Field Monitors via Simulation: Monitors => Field Monitor. A dialog box
opens where the type of the field, the start time and the sample step
width can be defined:
Three field types are available: Temperature, Heat Flow Density and
CEM43. The latter monitor represents the distribution of Cumulative
Equivalent Minutes at 43°C, which is commonly used to detect the
damage of biological tissues exposed to strong electromagnetic fields.
After the solver run has been completed, the recorded result can be
accessed via the 2D/3D Results folder in the Navigation Tree. The scalar
or vector field can be animated over the defined time period.
Steady State Thermal Solver –

Change the ambient temperature to 20’ C i.e. room temperature.

Transient Thermal Solver Settings –
Set the simulation duration to 30 minutes i.e., 1800000000000 ns. Also
change the ambient temperature to 20 ‘C equivalent room temperature
for simulation.
Literature Survey
Paper Max SAR @tumor Max SAR @gland Max Temp @tumor Max Temp @gland Max E
Hyperthermia for Breast 1W -> 0.957 1W -> 0.087 1W -> 38.61 1W -> 38.316 1W ->
Cancer Treatment Using a 2W -> 1.92 2W -> 0.175 2W -> 40.63 2W -> 39.64 2W ->
Slotted 3W -> 2.87 3W -> 0.261 3W -> 42.44 3W -> 40.96 3W ->
Microstrip Patch Antenna 4W -> 3.83 4W -> 0.348 4W -> 44.26 4W -> 42.28 4W ->
Array
Hyperthermia for Breast 0.5W -> 39.85 0.5W -> 39.2
Cancer Treatment 1W -> 42.69 1W -> 41.5
Using Slotted Circular 1.5W -> 45.54 1.5W -> 43.5
Patch Antenna 2W -> 48.4 2W -> 46

UWB Microwave 4 GHz -> 4.21372 4 GHz -> 4.4132

Detection of Breast 5 GHz -> 4.10815 5 GHz -> 4.30156
Cancer 6 GHz -> 2.5046 6 GHz -> 2.6906
Using SAR 7 GHz -> 1.56749 7 GHz -> 1.48732
8 GHz -> 4.22438 8 GHz -> 1.55609
9 GHz -> 5.2903 9 GHz -> 3.00623
Three-Dimensional 45 40
Microwave Hyperthermia
for
Breast Cancer Treatment
in a Realistic
Environment Using
Particle Swarm
Optimization

Realistic Simulation 39.5 35.5

Environment to Test
Microwave
Hyperthermia
Treatment of Breast
Cancer
Breast cancer 1.7 – 3 0 – 1.5 45 37
hyperthermia using a
grid array
applicator

Inferences
1. UWB band has been considered more effective for biomedical applications
because of its high frequency bandwidth, which in terms allows the
wavelength to be smaller as well to receive a higher bit rate after the practical
antenna implementation.
2. For on-body applications, multiple ring slot antennas are the best. It provides
optimum results in terms of parameters such as return loss, operating
frequency and wide bandwidth in a single antenna.
3. Of all the feeding techniques microstrip feed is the easiest.
4. Patch designs are currently receiving considerable attention for implantable
antennas, because they are highly flexible in design, shape, and conformability
thus allowing for relatively easy miniaturization and integration into the shape
of the implantable medical device
5. The delineation of the antenna structure and tuning its resonance frequency, a
technique is used known as iteration. This method is used to keep the antenna
in the lowest possible dimension and operate within ISM band and without
compromising the antenna performance.
6. A satisfactory on-body antenna needs to satisfy two conditions, firstly it needs
to be insensitive to the vicinity of the human body, and secondly it has to have
a radiation pattern that must reduce the link loss.
7. Vivaldi antennas combine large impedance match bandwidth together with
directive radiation pattern, so that they can convey more power towards the
target and reduce backscattering coming from obstacles outside the volume
under investigation.
8. Textile materials have very low dielectric constant values as compared to
non-textile materials. This provides antenna bandwidth improvement and
surface wave losses are reduced. Textile materials also result in larger
dimensions.
9. With the increasing magnitude of Return Loss (Si.i), the Antenna can be
capable of accepting more RF (Radiofrequency) energy for transmitting and
receiving the signal, and as a result, the Antenna will be more beneficial for
the body application.
10. When the distance between the Antenna and the body Phantom increases, the
Return Loss of the Antenna decreases. Sensitivity of tumor detection
decreases with increase in distance between antenna and breast phantom.
11. A smaller magnitude of VSWR indicates that the Antenna will perform better,
and it will also be beneficial for the body application. VSWR magnitude must
be equal to or greater than 1.
12. VSWR was increased or decreased after increasing the gap between the
Antenna and the Tumor-affected Human Body.
13. Greater the Antennas Directivity value, more concentrated beam can be
radiated by the Antenna, and due to this concentrated beam, the Antenna will
be more beneficial for the application of the human body.
14. Directivity of the Antenna can be increased or decreased after increasing the
gap between the Antenna and the Tumor-affected Human Body
15. The pencil beam radiation pattern allows the beam to penetrate deep into the
body. Specifically, the thin-beam pattern allows detecting thin tumors inside
the body.
16. Surface Current is the amount of current that was induced by the
electromagnetic field that is applied to the antenna.
17. Surface Current of the antenna can be decreased or increased after increasing
the gap between the Antenna and the Human Body.
18. For 1 gram of human body tissue, the minimum level of SAR must not exceed
1.6 W/ kg. The lower the value of SAR, the better the Antenna for the Body
Application.
19. SAR of the Antenna decreases when the gap between the Antenna and the
body Phantom increases, which is beneficial in consideration to human health.
20. Defected ground structure in a patch antenna result in a larger value of return
loss that is significant for cancer tissue detection.
 Problem Statement
Q-1. To design an antenna which could heat a tumor located at the center of the
breast phantom?

Q-2. To design a breast phantom which is a near replica of the real-world

scenarios?

Q-3. To raise the temperature of a tumor in the range 41-45 ‘C without affecting
the healthy tissues?

Breast Phantom Design

The thermal and electrical properties of the tissues inside the phantom has
already been covered in the HTP section under tissue segmentation.
The breast phantom has been designed for a number of cases. Starting from a
conical phantom having height of 126 mm and bottom radius of 200 mm.
Radius of the tumor inside the phantom was 10 mm.

For placing antennas on-body in case of conical phantom was difficult. Then a
spherical phantom with a fragmented structure having layers of fat, skin,
glandular and water bolus layer was designed.
Radius of water layer = 76 mm
Radius of skin layer = 75 mm
Radius of Fat layer = 70 mm
Radius of Gland layer = 55 mm
Radius of tumor inside the sphere = 12 mm
Due to the complexity in the structure and the loss of wave intensity outside of
the antenna the structure was simplified to only one tissue (gland layer) having
a radius of 55 mm and a tumor inside the sphere having a radius of 6 mm.

This structure was used for the final simulation.

 Patch Array Antenna Design

SAR analysis for a conical phantom with a single patch antenna

SAR analysis for a conical phantom with 2 patch antennas

SAR analysis for a conical phantom with 4 antennas at side

 SAR analysis for spherical phantom with a single patch antenna

SAR analysis for spherical phantom with an array of antennas.

In all the above cases it was not possible to achieve the maximum SAR at
tumor location.
How to achieve maximum SAR at tumor location?
After going through above answer and review of research paper few important
points noted –
1. The power density falls off straight away as soon as the energy leaves the
antenna, because it spreads out, and because the tissue absorbs some.
2. At low frequencies the power can add coherently to give a large hot spot at
the center, but at high frequencies there may be a rapidly varying
interference pattern so the average volume heating is due to the sum of the
powers.
3. There is room to increase the area of your antennas, either by making them
a bit wider or by adding extra ones, which will spread the surface heating
out a bit more, and reduce the temperature near the surface a bit.
4. Near field Antenna Review:

Focused antennas are mainly used in applications requiring higher power

densities in moderate ranges. For NFF antennas, the focal point is located in
the antenna radiative near the field region. Due to the field spreading factor,
the maximum radiated power density is obtained in the radiative near field
region not at the focal point, but it is located at a point between the antenna
aperture and the focal point. Near field focusing is done to increase the
electromagnetic power density in the radiative near field region close to the
antenna aperture. The focusing of the array is achieved by controlling the
phases of each individual antenna element in the array such that each
element’s field contribution is added up in phase to get the maximum at the
focal point. NFF antennas can achieve the required power density in a spot
region around the focal point with minimum radiation in the far field region
where the focusing effect is lost. Near field focused (NFF) antenna arrays can
be characterized by three most important parameters which are the depth of
focus, focal plane width and the axial and side lobe levels. The depth of focus
is defined as the distance between two -3 dB points around the point of maximum
power density along the direction normal to the antenna aperture. Focal plane
width defines the size of the region around the focal point, in a plane parallel to
the antenna aperture, where the normalized value of maximum power density is
greater than -3 dB.

Keeping all the above points in mind a 4x4 Array antenna has been designed
with spacing between each antenna – 61.28 mm and 0’ phase shift.

Antenna number Phase excitation values

1, 4, 13, 16 138.87

2, 3, 14, 15, 5, 9, 8, 12 78.56

6, 7, 10, 11 16.1
 The 4x4 patch array antenna

Simulation Result
🠶 Distance between antenna and tumor is r=130 mm or 13 cm.

🠶 Duration of heating is set to 30 min.

Maximum SAR for a hemispherical phantom is obtained at center.

Our model uses the assumption that the location of tumor is known prior to treatment.
Through above result we can conclude that maximum SAR is obtained at center of
hemispherical phantom. So, we can place a tumor at the center of spherical phantom.
Further simulation result is for a realistic spherical breast phantom which was
proposed earlier under the section Breast phantom design.

1. Radiation pattern for a single patch antenna vs Array antenna

The gain for a single patch antenna was obtained 5.68 dB and for an array
antenna the gain was 16.4 dB.
2. Specific Absorption Rate and Temperature Distribution :
SAR for input power of 1 W.

SAR for input power of 4 W.

SAR for input power of 6 W.

Temperature distribution for input power of 6 W.

SAR for input power of 16 W.

SAR for input power of 25 W.

Temperature Distribution for input power of 25 W.

SAR for input power of 36 W.

 Temperature Distribution for input power of 36 W.

CONCLUSION
The Hyperthermic treatment of a spherical breast phantom with a tumor located at the
center was carried out using a 4x4 microstrip patch antenna array excited using the
phase conjugate method. It was found that for input power of 36 W the temperature of
the tumor was successfully increased to greater than 41’C i.e., in the hyperthermic
therapeutic range (41-45’C). Further research needs to be done to back-prove the
result by solving mathematical penne’s bioheat equation using Matlab to check if the
desired temperature value is obtained for that specific input power level.

Merit - The localized heating is possible by using a patch antenna array. The
temperature of the tumor was successfully increased to therapeutic levels without
affecting the healthy tissues.
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View publication stats

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