Dielectric properties and water contents of coagulated biological tissue by microwave heating

Abstract

This study investigates the dielectric properties of coagulated biological tissues at 2.45 GHz in thermal treatments using microwave energy such as microwave coagulation therapy (MCT). These values are necessary to obtain accurate electromagnetic field or temperature distributions in numerical simulations of these treatments. This paper investigates the mechanism of changes in dielectric properties of biological tissues accompanying heat coagulation, by measuring the dielectric constants and water content ratios of tissues. Dielectric constants of heated biological tissues were observed to strongly depend on changes in their water content due to heat coagulation.