Three-dimensional modelling and terahertz imaging of malignant cells with convolutional time-reversed FDTD method

ABSTRACT

A novel image reconstruction approach to terahertz pulsed imaging for detecting malignant and fibrous cells within healthy tissue is presented. The non-ionizing effect of the terahertz radiation on healthy tissue makes it a future diagnosis method in medical imaging. The implemented method is based on the convolutional time-reversed FDTD algorithm in the terahertz range. It is computationally efficient and accurately reconstructs images of malignancies from reflected terahertz signals. Besides, the technique is capable of differentiating malignant, fibrous, and fatty cells through the variations of their electrical properties at the terahertz frequency range and well reconstructing their images in 3D. The images created in this method are in high resolution, even for cell-sized malignancies. Furthermore, the proposed technique is compared with conventional terahertz imaging methods and found to have more sophisticated outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Terahertz imaging
• malignant cells modeling
• time reversed FDTD
• cancer detection

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Bibliography

Cemile Bardak received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey, in 2003 and 2006, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA, in 2013. She joined CMS collaboration at LHC as a researcher from 2009 to 2011. In 2014, she joined the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of Manisa Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey, where she is currently an Assistant Professor. Her research interests include applied electromagnetics and the FDTD algorithm.