Real-time thermoacoustic imaging for breast tumor biomarker biopsy navigation basing on a semi-ring ultrasonic transducer

Biopsy is an important means to obtain pathological tissue samples. The traditional imaging technologies have played a great role in clinical biopsy, but they still face some insurmountable problems. Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging has been demonstrated to be a powerful technique for visualizing biological tissue structures and functions due to its high resolution, deep imaging depth, and minimal biohazard, which shows great potential for biomarker biopsy navigation. Here, we reported a real-time microwave-pumped thermoacoustic imaging technique for breast tumor intervention biopsy guidance by a fast scanning semi-ring ultrasonic transducer with 128 elements. The system can achieve an imaging speed of about 25 frames per second, and spatial resolution was about 870 μm. The proposed system possesses obvious advantages, such as fast imaging and high resolution, that make it a promising option for breast tumor biomarker biopsy navigation.