A simplified model of mammography geometry for breast cancer imaging with electrical impedance tomography.

One recent application area of EIT is the detection of breast cancer by imaging the conductivity and the permittivity distribution inside the breast. The present "gold standard" for breast cancer detection is X-ray mammography, and it is desirable that the EIT and the X-ray mammography use the same geometry. This work presents a simplified model of the mammography geometry for EIT imaging. The mammography geometry is modeled as a rectangular box with electrode arrays on the top and bottom planes. A forward model for the electrical impedance imaging problem is derived for the homogeneous conductivity distribution and validated by experiment using a phantom tank. The effect of unmodeled surface on the sides of the electrodes is studied.