Sign coherence factor-based double-stage delay multiply and sum beamforming algorithm for breast cancer detection

The delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) beamforming algorithm has been extensively used in medical imaging. In this study, we proposed a fast double-stage DMAS beamformer for breast cancer detection, combined with the sign coherence factor (SCF), namely SCF-DMAS. The performance of this method was evaluated on a three-dimensional-printed breast phantom surrounded by evenly spaced circular array antennas. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other beamformers involved with respect to the signal-to-clutter Ratio, signal-to-mean ratio, and localization error. To summarize, the SCF-DMAS improves the resolution and sidelobe suppression without significantly increasing the computational complexity.