<p>Microwave imaging is an efficient diagnostic modality for non-invasively visualizing dielectric contrasts of non-metallic bodies. An increasing interest of this field has been observed during the last decades. Many application areas in biomedicine have been issued, recently the breast tumor detection application using microwave imaging.</p><p>Many groups are working in the field at the moment for several reasons. Breast cancer is a major health problem globally for women, while it is the second most common cancer form for women causing 0.3 % of the yearly female death in Sweden. Medical imaging is considered as the most effective way of diagnostic breast tumors, where X-ray mammography is the dominating technique. However, this imaging modality still suffers from some limitations. Many women, mostly young ones, have radiographically dense breasts, which means that the breast tissues containing high rates of fibroglandular tissues. In this case the density is very similar to the breast tumor and the diagnosis is very difficult. In this case alternative modalities like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with contrast enhancement and Ultrasound imaging are used, however those are not suitable for large scale screening program.Another limitation is the false-negative and false-positive rate using mammography, in general 5–15 % of the tumors are not detected and many cases have to go though a breast biopsy to verify a tumor diagnosis. At last the mammography using breast compression sometimes painful, and utilizing ionizing X-rays. The big potential in microwave imaging is the reported high contrast of complex permittivity between fibroglandular tissues and tumor tissues in breasts and that it is a non-ionizing method which probably will be rather inexpensive.</p><p>The goal with this work is to develop a microwave imaging system able to reconstruct quantitative images of a female breast. In the frame of this goal this Licentiate thesis contains a brief review of the ongoing research in the field of microwave imaging of biological tissues, with the major focus on the breast tumor application. Both imaging algorithms and experimental setups are included. A feasibility study is performed to analyze what response levels could be expected, in signal properties, in a breast tumor detection application. Also, the usability of a 3D microwave propagation simulator, (QW3D), in the setup development is investigated. This is done by using a simple antenna setup with a breast phantom with different tumor positions. From those results it is clear that strong responses are obtained by a tumor presence and the diffracted responses gives strong information about inhomogeneities inside the breast. The second part of this Licentiate thesis is done in collaboration between Mälardalen University and Supélec. Using the existing planar 2.45 GHz microwave camera and the iterative non-linear Newton Kantorovich code, developed at Département de Recherches en Electromagnétisme (DRE) at Supélec, as a starting point, a new platform for both real-time qualitative imaging and quantitative images of inhomogeneous objects are investigated. The focusing is related to breast tumor detection. For the moment the tomographic performance of the planar camera is verified in simulations through a comparison with other setups. Good calibration is observed, but still experimental work concerning phantom development etc. is needed before experimental results on breast tumor detection may be obtained.</p>

Microwave imaging is an efficient diagnostic modality for non-invasively visualizing dielectric contrasts of non-metallic bodies. An increasing interest of this field has been observed during the last decades. Many application areas in biomedicine have been issued, recently the breast tumor detection application using microwave imaging. Many groups are working in the field at the moment for several reasons. Breast cancer is a major health problem globally for women, while it is the second most common cancer form for women causing 0.3 % of the yearly female death in Sweden. Medical imaging is considered as the most effective way of diagnostic breast tumors, where X-ray mammography is the dominating technique. However, this imaging modality still suffers from some limitations. Many women, mostly young ones, have radiographically dense breasts, which means that the breast tissues containing high rates of fibroglandular tissues. In this case the density is very similar to the breast tumor and the diagnosis is very difficult. In this case alternative modalities like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with contrast enhancement and Ultrasound imaging are used, however those are not suitable for large scale screening program.Another limitation is the false-negative and false-positive rate using mammography, in general 5–15 % of the tumors are not detected and many cases have to go though a breast biopsy to verify a tumor diagnosis. At last the mammography using breast compression sometimes painful, and utilizing ionizing X-rays. The big potential in microwave imaging is the reported high contrast of complex permittivity between fibroglandular tissues and tumor tissues in breasts and that it is a non-ionizing method which probably will be rather inexpensive. The goal with this work is to develop a microwave imaging system able to reconstruct quantitative images of a female breast. In the frame of this goal this Licentiate thesis contains a brief review of the ongoing research in the field of microwave imaging of biological tissues, with the major focus on the breast tumor application. Both imaging algorithms and experimental setups are included. A feasibility study is performed to analyze what response levels could be expected, in signal properties, in a breast tumor detection application. Also, the usability of a 3D microwave propagation simulator, (QW3D), in the setup development is investigated. This is done by using a simple antenna setup with a breast phantom with different tumor positions. From those results it is clear that strong responses are obtained by a tumor presence and the diffracted responses gives strong information about inhomogeneities inside the breast. The second part of this Licentiate thesis is done in collaboration between Mälardalen University and Supélec. Using the existing planar 2.45 GHz microwave camera and the iterative non-linear Newton Kantorovich code, developed at Département de Recherches en Electromagnétisme (DRE) at Supélec, as a starting point, a new platform for both real-time qualitative imaging and quantitative images of inhomogeneous objects are investigated. The focusing is related to breast tumor detection. For the moment the tomographic performance of the planar camera is verified in simulations through a comparison with other setups. Good calibration is observed, but still experimental work concerning phantom development etc. is needed before experimental results on breast tumor detection may be obtained.

Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία στόχος είναι η μελέτη της δυνατότητας επεξεργασίας των εικόνων των μαστογραφιών με σκοπό την ανίχνευση σε αυτές ύποπτων περιοχών. Η μελέτη αυτή βασίζεται στις ήδη υπάρχουσες επιστημονικές γνώσεις γύρω από τον καρκίνου του μαστού και τις ιδιότητές του και γίνεται μέσω επεξεργασίας των εικόνων με Matlab. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο αναφέρονται οι γνώσεις που έχουμε συλλέξει από επιστημονικές πηγές σχετικά με τις αιτίες,τη φαινομενολογία,την έκταση και τα είδη του καρκίνου του μαστού καθώς και τη διαδικασία της αναλογικής και της ψηφιακής μαστογραφία. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο αναλύονται ενδελεχώς όλα τα χαρακτηριστικά της ψηφιακής μαστογραφίας.Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο γίνεται ανασκόπηση των τεχνικών οι οποίες έχουν προταθεί ή χρησιμοποιηθεί για την αυτοματοποιημένη διάγνωση, κατηγοριοποίηση και επεξεργασία μαστογραφικών εικόνων.Στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο γίνεται ανάλυση της μεθόδου εντοπισμού καρκίνου από εικόνες μαστογραφίας με τη χρήση μετασχηματισμού Watershed. Στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο εξετάζεται η κλινική χρησιμότητα της καμπύλης ROC και JAFROC στη διαγνωστική έρευνα. Στο έκτο και τελευταιο κεφάλαιο γίνεται ολόκληρη η πειραματική διαδικασία στην οποία δοκιμάζονται διάφοροι τρόποι επεξεργασίας της εικόνας για όλα τα είδη καρκίνων του μαστού σε ένα μεγάλο πλήθος μαστογραφιών και εξάγονται σημαντικά συμπεράσματα για την επιλογή κάποιων από αυτών ανά είδος. / In this essay the purpose is the study of the possibility of mammography image processing techniques in order to detect possible breast cancer tissues. The study is based on already gained scientific knowledge on breast cancer and its characteristics and it is achieved through image processing techniques in matlab. In the first chapter is reported the knowledge we have gained on causes ,description, range and kinds of breast cancer , as also as the analogical and digital mammography procedure. In the second chapter, there are fully analyzed the digital mammography features. In the third chapter, there is a review of techniques used or tested in the past in automatic mammographic diagnosis and in image categorization and processing. In the fourth chapter,an image detection technique based on transformation Watershed is analyzed. In the fifth chapter, the clinical usefulness of ROC and JAFROC study is studied. In the sixth and last chapter, there is the whole experimental procedure that we have accomplished in order to test the advantages of various matlab image detection tools in various breast cancer kinds. There are also made some very important conlusions in the last chapter.

The clinical management of glioma remains a challenge. The prognosis is poor—for glioblastoma multiforme, the most virulent of these brain cancers, survival is only ~1 year. Surgical resection of the tumor is the first line of defense. Several studies demonstrate a survival advantage in patients who undergo near-complete tumor resection; however, achieving complete resection is limited by the difficulty of visualizing residual tumor after de-bulking. Intraoperative fluorescence guidance is a promising candidate to better visualize residual tumor. The most clinically developed form uses protoporphyrin IX fluorescence, the precursor to heme in its biosynthesis which preferentially accumulates in tumor cells after the administration of 5-aminolevulinic acid. Challenges remain in quantitatively assessing the fluorescence to reduce variability of outcome and improve tumor detection specificity, and in observing sub-surface tumor fluorescence. To these ends, this work outlines the development of intraoperative techniques to 1) quantify tissue fluorescence using a handheld fiberoptic probe and 2) improve detection by reconstructing the depth-resolved fluorescence topography of sub-surface tumor. As a critical component to achieve these objectives, a technique to measure the tissue optical properties was developed. This technique used diffuse reflectance measurements mediated by a handheld fiberoptic probe to derive the tissue optical properties. The handheld fiberoptic probe was further developed to include fluorescence spectroscopy. A novel algorithm to combine the fluorescence measurement and the tissue optical properties was derived in order to extract the quantitative fluorescence spectrum, i.e. fluorescence without confounding effects of tissue optical properties. The concentration of fluorescent tumor biomarker can then be extracted. The quantitative fluorescence work culminated in deployment of the fiberoptic probe in clinical trials for the resection of intracranial tumors. The quantitative fluorescence probe out-performed a state-of-the-art fluorescence surgical microscope for a broad range of brain tumor pathologies. A novel technique for depth-resolved fluorescence detection was developed utilizing multi-excitation fluorescence imaging. An algorithm to extract depth information from the multi-excitation images was derived, with validation in phantoms and a rat brain tumor model. This demonstrates the potential for depth-resolved fluorescence imaging, which there is a clear need for in tumor resection guidance.

The clinical management of glioma remains a challenge. The prognosis is poor—for glioblastoma multiforme, the most virulent of these brain cancers, survival is only ~1 year. Surgical resection of the tumor is the first line of defense. Several studies demonstrate a survival advantage in patients who undergo near-complete tumor resection; however, achieving complete resection is limited by the difficulty of visualizing residual tumor after de-bulking. Intraoperative fluorescence guidance is a promising candidate to better visualize residual tumor. The most clinically developed form uses protoporphyrin IX fluorescence, the precursor to heme in its biosynthesis which preferentially accumulates in tumor cells after the administration of 5-aminolevulinic acid. Challenges remain in quantitatively assessing the fluorescence to reduce variability of outcome and improve tumor detection specificity, and in observing sub-surface tumor fluorescence. To these ends, this work outlines the development of intraoperative techniques to 1) quantify tissue fluorescence using a handheld fiberoptic probe and 2) improve detection by reconstructing the depth-resolved fluorescence topography of sub-surface tumor. As a critical component to achieve these objectives, a technique to measure the tissue optical properties was developed. This technique used diffuse reflectance measurements mediated by a handheld fiberoptic probe to derive the tissue optical properties. The handheld fiberoptic probe was further developed to include fluorescence spectroscopy. A novel algorithm to combine the fluorescence measurement and the tissue optical properties was derived in order to extract the quantitative fluorescence spectrum, i.e. fluorescence without confounding effects of tissue optical properties. The concentration of fluorescent tumor biomarker can then be extracted. The quantitative fluorescence work culminated in deployment of the fiberoptic probe in clinical trials for the resection of intracranial tumors. The quantitative fluorescence probe out-performed a state-of-the-art fluorescence surgical microscope for a broad range of brain tumor pathologies. A novel technique for depth-resolved fluorescence detection was developed utilizing multi-excitation fluorescence imaging. An algorithm to extract depth information from the multi-excitation images was derived, with validation in phantoms and a rat brain tumor model. This demonstrates the potential for depth-resolved fluorescence imaging, which there is a clear need for in tumor resection guidance.

Bladder tumor is the most common tumor detected in patients presenting with gross hematuria. Early detection and treatment is crucial for good prognosis, however, delay in diagnosis and treatment is common. Routine work-up of gross hematuria includes cystoscopy and Computed Tomography Urography (CTU). If CTU has a high detection rate of bladder tumor, it can be used to direct further investigation of the patient, hopefully reducing delay to diagnosis and treatment. There is no consensus on which phase the bladder should be assessed at CTU. Assessment of the bladder in an early contrast-enhancing phase requires contrast material enhancement in bladder tumors and a bladder that is properly distended with urine. For patients younger than 50 years, the routine CTU protocol used for examining gross hematuria patients included unenhanced (UE), corticomedullary phase (CMP), and excretory phase (EP), with the start of the scan being enhancement triggered: patients aged 50 years or older followed the same protocol plus a nephrographic phase (NP). The CTU protocol was compared with flexible cystoscopy for detecting bladder tumors. Sensitivity for bladder cancer detection was equal for CTU and cystoscopy (0.87). Patients diagnosed with bladder cancer (n=50) were examined during UE, CMP, and EP, and 21 patients were additionally examined in NP. The highest mean tumor contrast enhancement was seen in CMP (37 HU). The CMP, NP, and EP in 106 patients were randomized into an evaluation order (n=318 different phases) and blindly reviewed by two uroradiologists. In CMP, sensitivity (0.95) and negative predictive value (0.99) were higher than in NP and EP. Four different preparation protocols for achieving bladder distension were compared. The protocol that included drinking 1 l of fluid during a two-hour period prior to examination without voiding during that period, gave satisfactory bladder distension without causing unacceptable patient discomfort and having the lowest compliance.   Gross hematuria patients should be primarily examined with CTU including UE, CMP and EP to direct further investigation of the patients. The patients should follow a preparation protocol including drinking 1 l of fluid during a two-hour period before examination and not voiding during that period.

<p>On the surface heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is an unlikely drug target for the treatment of any disease, let alone cancer. Hsp90 is highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed in all cells. There are four major isoforms encoded by distinct genes and together they may constitute 1-3% of the cellular protein. Genetic deletion results in nonviable phenotypes in some organisms, and there are no recognized polymorphisms suggesting an association or causal relationship with any human disease. With respect to cancer, the proteins absence from some recent high profile articles underlines the perception that it is an unlikely bona fide target to treat this disease. Yet, to date, there are 17 distinct Hsp90 inhibitors in clinical trials for multiple indications in cancer. The protein has been championed for over 20 years by the National Cancer Institute as a cancer target since the discovery of the antitumor activity of geldanamycin. Rather than focus on the intracellular inhibition of Hsp90, we have shifted our aim to the differences of Hsp90 between cancer and normal tissue, namely its extracellular expression.</p><p>My graduate thesis work has focused on the characterization of a series of novel small molecule imaging agents (fluor-tethered Hsp90 inhibitors) that enable the specific detection of ectopically expressed Hsp90 on tumor cells. We believe that these molecules will have a large impact in the near future on the diagnosis and treatment of metastatic breast cancer as well as other cancers. This hypothesis is based on recent findings in the clinical literature that have linked upregulation of Hsp90 with poor outcomes in multiple subtypes of breast cancer. Additionally, several papers have also reported an association of the expression of extracellular Hsp90 and metastatic progression in several human cancers. Hsp90 is currently considered by some as a cutting edge cancer drug target. The Haystead lab synthesized a series of tethered Hsp90 inhibitors that were modified with fluorophores and other imaging moieties in such a way as to preserve the binding to Hsp90 and enable detection through non-invasive imaging techniques. In a series of cell-based, live animal and biochemical studies we demonstrated that these molecules are highly selective for Hsp90 and can be used to specifically recognize intact tumor cells expressing ectopic Hsp90. Furthermore, we also observed that once bound to ectopic Hsp90, our tethered-inhibitors are actively internalized and this process can be blocked with Hsp90 antibodies. These findings have two implications; first, Hsp90 is undergoing active cycling at the plasma membrane; second, the finding that once bound to surface Hsp90 our fluor-tethered inhibitors can be internalized despite their polar nature. These results suggest a new therapeutic strategy that will enable specific delivery of tumor killing agents (e.g. 131I or metabolic poisons) to metastatic cells. This is unique because the use of small molecule inhibitors and not antibody- or nanoparticle-based payload delivery strategies offers advantages in formulation, cost and reproducibility.</p><p> In addition to payload delivery possibilities, we also show the utility of the tethered-inhibitors diagnostically by demonstrating their use in the detection of tumors in mouse models of human breast cancer. As a result of our animal studies, we believe our molecules in their present form could be used to address a currently unmet need in the early diagnosis of aggressive breast cancer and discriminating this from more indolent forms. </p><p>Furthermore, the tethered Hsp90 inhibitors have been used to make ligand affinity chromatography resins that have facilitated the discovery of other unique Hsp90 expressions and functions associated with cancer. We have found a pool of Hsp90 that is misfolded as determined by affinity chromatography depletion and a leftward thermal stability shift in the population of Hsp90 that flows through the ligand affinity resins. Differential trypsin digest patterns detected by mass spectrometry reveal also that the native protein has sites that are more accessible to trypsinization. This could have further implications in treating and detecting differences between cancerous tissues and normal tissues by designing an antibody that recognizes the exposed portions of the misfolded Hsp90. Together this body of work illustrates that not only is Hsp90 different in total expression levels in cancers, but is ectopically expressed and misfolded so as to provide other opportunities for therapeutic intervention that improve the safety for more clinical applications.</p> / Dissertation

Multi-spectral images have the advantage of providing complementary information to resolve some ambiguities. But, the challenge is how to make use of the multi-spectral images effectively. In this thesis, our study focuses on the fusion of multi-spectral images by extracting the most useful features to obtain the best segmentation with the least cost in time. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification integrated with a selection of the features in a kernel space is proposed. The selection criterion is defined by the kernel class separability. Based on this SVM classification, a framework to follow up brain tumor evolution is proposed, which consists of the following steps: to learn the brain tumors and select the features from the first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination of the patients; to automatically segment the tumor in new data using a multi-kernel SVM based classification; to refine the tumor contour by a region growing technique; and to possibly carry out an adaptive training. The proposed system was tested on 13 patients with 24 examinations, including 72 MRI sequences and 1728 images. Compared with the manual traces of the doctors as the ground truth, the average classification accuracy reaches 98.9%. The system utilizes several novel feature selection methods to test the integration of feature selection and SVM classifiers. Also compared with the traditional SVM, Fuzzy C-means, the neural network and an improved level set method, the segmentation results and quantitative data analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed system.

Nas últimas décadas a medicina nuclear tornou-se uma grande aliada no auxílio ao diagnóstico de doenças e também para o tratamento do câncer. Parte deste sucesso está relacionada à constante pesquisa e desenvolvimento de novos radiofármacos. Uma classe de molécula que vem se mostrando promissora para o tratamento de tumores, tanto na sua forma orgânica quanto na forma de complexos organo-metálicos, é a tiossemicarbazona e seus derivados, os quais também podem formar complexos com radioisótopos metálicos dando origem a radiofármacos para diagnóstico e terapia. Neste trabalho foram preparados complexos com o ligante benzil-5-hidroxi-3-metil-5-fenil-4,5-diidro-1H-pirazol-1-carboditionato (H2bdtc) com os radioisótopos [99mTc]tecnécio, (67/68Ga)gálio e (111In)índio, e foram avaliados a pureza radioquímica, Log P e a estabilidade na presença de L-cisteína, L-histidina, soro albumina humana (SAH) e plasma de sangue humano; também foram avaliadas a taxa de captação dos radiofármacos in vitro em células de melanoma murino B16F10 e TM1M, além da avaliação da captação ex vivo e in vivo utilizando camundongos C57B/6 inoculados com as duas linhagens tumorais. Com o [99mT]tecnécio foram obtidos dois complexos diferentes, dependendo da concentração do PBS na solução, sendo que em um deles foi possível confirmar sua estrutura como [[99mTc]O(bdtc)(Hbdtc)] a partir do complexo de rênio [ReO(bdtc)(Hbdtc)], o outro complexo de [99mTc]tecnécio, bem como de (67/68Ga)gálio e (111In)índio não tiveram a estrutura caracterizada. A eficiência de marcação dos complexos foi superior a 90 %, com Log P maior que 1 para os complexos [[99mTc]O(bdtc)(Hbdtc)], [[99mTc]-bdtc] e [67/68Ga-bdtc] e 0,9 para [111In-bdtc]. Todos os complexos se mostraram com boa estabilidade na presença de L-cisteína e L-histidina, principalmente na primeira hora de incubação, mas não o foram na presença de SAH e plasma. A captação in vitro dos complexos em células B16F10 e TM1M variou entre 0,6 % e 1,8 %, e nos estudos de biodistribuição ex vivo foi obesrvada intensa e persistente captação hepática e no baço, superando 90 %, e captação no tumor variando de 0,2 % a 3 %, enquanto que nas imagens in vivo não foi possível observar de forma uma adequada captação nos tumores a ponto de permitir o uso como agente de diagnóstico. Os resultados permitem concluir que os complexos de derivados tiossemicarbazonas podem formar complexos com diferentes metais, mas novos derivados devem ser preparados para tentar melhorar o desempenho nos sistemas biológicos. Os experimentos com animais foram aprovados pela Comissão de Ética em Pesquisa da Faculdade de Medicina - USP, processo 372/12 / In recent decades, nuclear medicine has been used as diagnostic agent for disease and for the treatment of cancer. Part of this success is related to the constant research and development of new radiopharmaceuticals. Thiosemicarbazone and their derivatives have proven to be promising agent for the treatment of tumors, both in its organic form or as organo-metallic complexes. Also, they can to form complexes with metal radioisotopes giving radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and therapy. In this work we prepared complex of benzyl-5-hydroxy-3-methyl-5-phenyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-1-carboditionato (H2bdtc) with radioisotopes [99mTc]technetium (67/68Ga)gallium and (111In)indium and the radiochemical purity, Log P and stability in the presence of L-cysteine, L-histidine, human serum albumin (HSA) and human blood plasma were assessed; also were assessed the in vitro uptake rate of radiopharmaceuticals in murine melanoma cells B16F10 and TM1M, besides the evaluation of ex vivo uptake and in vivo using C57Bl/6 mice inoculated with both tumor lines. With [99mT] technetium two different complexes were obtained, depending on the concentration of the PBS in the solution, and one of them was had its structure to confirm as [[99mTc]O(bdtc)(Hbdtc)] from the standard rhenium complex [ReO(bdtc)(Hbdtc)], the other [99mTc] echnetium complex as well as (67/68Ga)gallium and (111In)indium not have characterized the structure. The labeling efficiency of compleos was higher than 90%, with log P higher than 1 for the complexes [[99mTc]O(bdtc)(Hbdtc)], [[99mTc]-bdtc] and [(67/68Ga)-bdtc] and 0.9 to [111In-bdtc]. All the complexes showed good stability in the presence of L-cysteine and L-histidine, especially in the first hour of incubation, but not in the presence of HSA and plasma. The uptake in vitro complexes in B16F10 and TM1M cells varied between 0.6% and 1.8%, and in ex vivo biodistribution studies was obesrvada intense and persistent liver uptake and spleen, exceeding 90%, and tumor uptake in changing from 0.2% to 3%, while in vivo imaging was not possible to observe a properly uptake in tumors, not allowing to use these molecules as a diagnostic agent. The results indicate that the thiosemicarbazone derivative complex can give complexes with different metals, but new derivatives should be prepared to try to improve performance in biological systems. The animal experimentation was approved by Comissão de Ética em Pesquisa da Faculdade de Medicina - USP, proccess 372/12

This dissertation presents a contribution to quantitative microwave imaging for breast tumor detection. The study made in the frame of a joint supervision Ph.D. thesis between University Paris-SUD 11 (France) and Mälardalen University (Sweden), has been conducted through two experimental microwave imaging setups, the existing 2.45 GHz planar camera (France) and the multi-frequency flexible robotic system, (Sweden), under development. In this context a 2D scalar flexible numerical tool based on a Newton-Kantorovich (NK) scheme, has been developed. Quantitative microwave imaging is a three dimensional vectorial nonlinear inverse scattering problem, where the complex permittivity of an object is reconstructed from the measured scattered field, produced by the object. The NK scheme is used in order to deal with the nonlinearity and the ill-posed nature of this problem. A TM polarization and a two dimensional medium configuration have been considered in order to avoid its vectorial aspect. The solution is found iteratively by minimizing the square norm of the error with respect to the scattered field data. Consequently, the convergence of such iterative process requires, at least two conditions. First, an efficient calibration of the experimental system has to be associated to the minimization of model errors. Second, the mean square difference of the scattered field introduced by the presence of the tumor has to be large enough, according to the sensitivity of the imaging system. The existing planar camera associated to a flexible 2D scalar NK code, are considered as an experimental platform for quantitative breast imaging. A preliminary numerical study shows that the multi-view planar system is quite efficient for realistic breast tumor phantoms, according to its characteristics (frequency, planar geometry and water as a coupling medium), as long as realistic noisy data are considered. Furthermore, a multi-incidence planar system, more appropriate in term of antenna-array arrangement, is proposed and its concept is numerically validated. On the other hand, an experimental work which includes a new fluid-mixture for the realization of a narrow band cylindrical breast phantom, a deep investigation in the calibration process and model error minimization, is presented. This conducts to the first quantitative reconstruction of a realistic breast phantom by using multi-view data from the planar camera. Next, both the qualitative and quantitative reconstruction of 3D inclusions into the cylindrical breast phantom, by using data from all the retina, are shown and discussed. Finally, the extended work towards the flexible robotic system is presented. / A dissertation prepared through an international convention for a joint supervision thesis with Université Paris-SUD 11, France / Microwaves in biomedicine