Using Dielectric Properties of Solid Fraction and Water Content to Characterize Tissues at Different Health and Age Conditions

Precise dielectric properties (DPs) of biological tissues play an essential role in the development of non-invasive microwave diagnostic and therapeutic systems. There is much information in the literature about DPs of healthy tissues; however, there is a gap in DPs of unhealthy tissues and DPs of tissues at different ages. Each tissue can be described by DPs of its solid fraction and water content values. The observed DPs of tissue changes with the level of tissue’ s water content (increase or decrease) according to the condition of the tissue (i.e., pathology and age). For the current study, DPs of solid fraction and water content of 19 different tissues from 61 pigs of different ages were measured and used to generate DPs of those tissues under different conditions using a simple mathematical model. The dry-weighing method was used to determine the water content of tissues, and DPs of their solid fractions were measured. Then, the DPs of those tissues were generated using the proposed method and found to be in a good agreement with previously published data, as well as with the measured data in this article. This article confirms the potential of using DPs of the solid fraction and water content to calculate DPs of tissues at any age or pathology.