Highly reproducible tissue-mimicking phantoms for hyperthermia applications

Tissue-mimicking phantoms are essential for the creation of a controlled measurement scenario where medical equipment and innovative techniques can be preliminary tested. In this work, a well-established recipe is used for the preparation of a highly reproducible, semi-solid, agar-based phantom for mi- crowave applications and temperature monitoring. The phantom was created to reproduce hyperthermia treatments in the head and neck region, where it is used to mimic the properties of muscle tissue in the 434 MHz ISM frequency band. Repeated measurements performed in different experimental sessions and with different methods showed the robustness and repeatability of the considered recipe, whose ingredients can be easily dosed to create targets with different dielectric characteristics. An accurate thermal characterization of the phantom was also performed, providing thermal properties similar to those of human muscle.