Abstract
Conventional breast cancer detection techniques including X-ray mammography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound scanning suffer from shortcomings such as excessive cost, harmful radiation, and inconveniences to the patients. These challenges motivated researchers to investigate alternative methods including the use of microwaves. This article focuses on reviewing the background of microwave techniques for breast tumour detection. In particular, this study reviews the recent advancements in active microwave imaging, namely microwave tomography and radar-based techniques. The main objective of this paper is to provide researchers and physicians with an overview of the principles, techniques, and fundamental challenges associated with microwave imaging for breast cancer detection. Furthermore, this study aims to shed light on the fact that until today, there are very few commercially available and cost-effective microwave-based systems for breast cancer imaging or detection. This conclusion is not intended to imply the inefficacy of microwaves for breast cancer detection, but rather to encourage a healthy debate on why a commercially available system has yet to be made available despite almost 30 years of intensive research.