Significant new research has led to progress against breast cancer-better treatments, a lower chance of death from the disease and improved quality of life. Diagnosis, however, has not changed for years, relying on traditional physical exams and mammograms.

Now, a research project being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison is developing the technology necessary for making probes that may lead to more accurate methods for detecting and diagnosing breast tumors.

The electric and magnetic properties that comprise healthy human breast tissue are affected by conditions that include age, body fat and a woman's cycle. Considering this complex base of information, the NIST and UW-Madison researchers determined the characteristics for coaxial probes that can be used to measure these properties accurately.

The probes consist of flangeless, open-ended coaxial lines that are operational over a frequency range from 1 to 25 gigahertz. The development of this technology is an important first step toward the future use of probes to discern between the properties of healthy tissue and malignancies.

SOURCE:
National Institute of Standards and Technology (http://www.nist.gov)