Title: "FEEDBACK ON MICROWAVE IMAGING FOR MEDICAL APPLICATIONS: COMPARISON BETWEEN STRATEGIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIONS"
Date, Place and time: Friday 4th May 2012, room G.O. Jones 609 at 10.30 am
Presenter: Prof. Jean-Charles Bolomey, Supelec, Electromagnetic Research Department, University Paris-Sud XI, France
Abstract:
For many years, microwaves have been considered as a therapeutic or diagnosis agent for biomedical applications. The reasons are due to their penetration capability in and specific/contrasted interaction with living tissues. Cancer, for its relevance in terms of public health, has focused most of the microwave medical research. In the 80’s, cancer treatment by microwave hyperthermia raised large expectations and has been intensively developed, either non-invasively or invasively, with mitigated results. Bottlenecks mainly consisted in the difficulty to produce the required temperature profile in the tumor, without damaging surrounding healthy tissues. Focusing a microwave beam in a tumor and controlling the temperature elevation was a double difficult challenge, especially in case of deep-seated tumors, due to complex thermoregulatory mechanisms.
Several decades later, it is worth observing a significant come-back of microwave hyperthermia, which seems to be stimulated by an indisputable improvement of modeling techniques at both electromagnetic and thermal levels, as well as by the development of UWB technologies. Similarly, microwave imaging, which was initially boosted by the need of non-invasive thermometry during hyperthermia treatments, has extensively reappeared with breast imaging, which for location and contrast reasons was supposed to offer a more favorable configuration than those related to hyperthermia applications. However, here again, facing the realty has seriously modified early optimistic plans and impacted technological options. The expected reliability/cost ratio is still far from being achieved. More generally, everything happens as if any attempt to use microwaves for medical applications replicates the same downward revision scenario. To explain such a trend, at least two main reasons may be advanced, i) a misunderstanding of the real needs in a context of competition with other methods already well established in clinical practice and ii) an overestimation of the possibilities offered by microwaves to fit end-user expectations with the today available technology. In this presentation, an updated feedback over several different projects dedicated to breast imaging is used to illustrate the questioning of the original objectives and the difficult search for palliative solutions. This allows identifying which technology advances should allow, in the future, overcoming current limitations.
Biography:
Jean-Charles Bolomey is currently an Emeritus Professor at Paris-Sud University. He graduated from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Supelec) in 1963, received his Ph.D. degree from Paris-Sud University in 1971, and became a Professor at this University in 1976. His research has been conducted in the Electromagnetic Research Department of the Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes, a joint unit of Supelec and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Since 1981, his research contributions have been devoted to Near-Field techniques in a broad sense, including antenna measurement, EMC testing as well as Industrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM) applications. These contributions have largely concerned measurement techniques and have been deliberately oriented toward innovative technology transfer and valorization. Jean-Charles Bolomey has more particularly promoted the modulated probe array technology, demonstrating its unrivaled potential for rapid Near-Field scanning. He has co-authored with Professor F.Gardiol a reference book on principles and applications of the Modulated Scattering Technique (MST). He is holder of numerous patents covering various MST-based probe array arrangements for microwave sensing and imaging systems. In 1986, under the impulse of the National Agency for Valorization (ANVAR) and of the CNRS, Professor Bolomey founded the Société d’Applications Technologiques de l’Imagerie Micro-Onde (SATIMO), which is now considered as a leading company in the field of antenna measurement. He has been also involved in industrial applications of microwave heating as a Chairman of the Microwave Group of Electricité de France (EDF) and was appointed as a consultant by the Délégation Générale de l’Armement (DGA) in the field of High Power Microwave (HPM) metrology. He has also actively contributed to several cooperative European Programs ranging from medical hyperthermia to industrial process tomography and has contributed to various prototype transfer and evaluation procedures in these areas. Recently, his research was related to RF dosimetry and rapid SAR measurements for wireless communication devices. Professor Bolomey his now continuing his research on load-modulated scattering antennas, and, more particularly, novel sensing applications of RFID technology. He is also contributing as a member of several Scientific Advisory Boards of European Institutions (Chalmers University, Queen Mary London University) and startup companies.
Jean-Charles Bolomey has received several awards, including the Blondel Medal of the Société des Electriciens et des Electroniciens (SEE) in 1976, the Général Ferrié Award of the French Academy of Sciences in 1984, and the Best Paper Award of the European Microwave Conference (EuMC) in 1983. In 1994, he has granted the Schlumberger Stitching Fund Award for his contribution to inverse scattering techniques in microwave imagery. In 2001, he has received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Antenna Measurement Technique Association (AMTA) for his pioneering activity in the field of modulated probe arrays, and in 2007, elected as Edmond S. Gillespie Fellow for AMTA. He received the 2004 Medal of the French URSI Chapter. He has obtained the 2006 H.A. Wheeler Best Application Prize Paper Award of the IEEE AP-Society for his co-authored paper on “Spherical Near-Field Facility for Characterizing Random Emissions”. Professor Bolomey is Fellow of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and received the Grade Emeritus of SEE in 1995.