System and method for collection and use of magnetic resonance data and microwave data to identify boundaries of interest

摘要

A system and method for detecting permittivity and conductivity boundaries within a high resolution spatial image of a material is presented. Electrical properties of a material, such as permittivity and conductivity, may assist in identification of physical properties of the material. Structural boundaries within tissue may be identified in spatial images, such as MR images. Image reconstruction algorithms may combine these structural boundaries with microwave images of the tissue to determine the permittivity and conductivity parameters within the structural boundaries. In the case of soft tissue, the microwave images may be captured simultaneously with the spatial images. The microwave images may be taken at a different time from the spatial image for rigid tissue. The method may be employed for two dimensional or three dimensional image reconstruction.

主权项

1. A method for use of spatial resolution data and microwave data to identify region boundaries of interest in soft tissue, wherein the method comprises the steps of:
simultaneously gathering spatial resolution data and microwave data from the soft tissue; creating a customized mesh segmented into multiple subzones from spatial information resulting from the gathered spatial resolution data; and performing image reconstruction using spatial information resulting from the gathered spatial resolution data and gathered microwave data using soft prior regularization, further comprising the steps of:
identifying regions having the same or similar dielectric properties;penalizing a variation within the regions identified to have the same or similar dielectric properties; andrestricting smoothing across a boundary shared by a first region within the gathered spatial resolution data identified to have a first set of dielectric properties and a second region within the gathered spatial resolution data identified to have a second set of dielectric properties.