Authors: Iakovidis, S.; Samaras, T.
ACES 2026: The Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Conference, 2026, Thessaloniki, Greece, May 24–27.
Abstract
Microwave and millimeter-wave techniques are promising for non-invasive skin cancer detection due to their sensitivity to tissue dielectric properties. In this study, realistic three-dimensional (3D) skin models, including nodular basal cell carcinoma (BCC), are generated by combining Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and ultrasound (US) imaging. These models are used in finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic simulations to evaluate the power reflection coefficient over the 10-100 GHz frequency range.
The results show a consistently higher reflection from skin containing BCC compared to healthy skin, particularly at frequencies above 20 GHz. This behaviour is attributed to the increased permittivity associated with the higher free water content of BCC tissue. Additional simulations with increased permittivity values further demonstrate the sensitivity of the reflected power to water content variations. These findings support the potential of microwave-based techniques for non-invasive detection of skin cancer.