Radar For Medical Imaging and Monitoring

Dr Nigel Whittle, head of medical & healthcare at Plextek explores the potential use of microwaves for medicine in a Med-Tech news article.

“Medical imaging is one of the most important technologies available to doctors and other medical workers, providing critical information for diagnosis and treatment. There is however no single technology for imaging of internal structures that is universally applicable to all tissues, has high resolution, is inexpensive, doesn’t use ionizing radiation and creates images in real-time. An ideal system would also be portable and low-cost, with the potential for use in ambulances and other out-of-hospital environments.

The microwave frequency band (300 MHz – 30 GHz) possesses useful characteristics, including the use of non-ionizing radiation which is harmless at moderate power levels but penetrates biological tissue reasonably well. Compared with more conventional medical imaging systems such as MRI or X-rays, microwave imaging systems produce a lower spatial resolution but a high temporal resolution – the ability to resolve fast-paced events.”

Read the full article: Radar for medical imaging and monitoring