| Most of breast cancers (85%) originate from the epithelium and develop first in the ductolobular structures. Therefore, the mammary epithelium should be investigated in priority by means of an anatomically guided examination. For this purpose (mass screening, surgery navigation), we develop a two-dimensional anatomic phantom which corresponds to an axial cut of the ductolobular structures and enables one to better understand the interaction of the breast composition with ultrasound. The different constitutive tissues are modeled as a random inhomogeneous continuum with density and sound speed fluctuations. Ultrasonic pulse propagation through the breast computer phantom has been simulated using a finite element time domain method (the phantom can be used with others propagation codes). The simulated Ductal Echographic image is compared with the Ductal Tomographic (DT) reconstruction. The preliminary results reveal a higher quality of DT both in terms of contrast and resolution. |
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