Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging (MTAI) is a novel nondestructive physical medical imaging method that combines the advantages of microwave imaging's high contrast and ultrasound imaging's high resolution. Through the transformation of energy transfer from microwave to ultrasound, MTAI achieves nondestructive and centimeter deep high-resolution imaging of biological tissues using the microwave as an excitation source and ultrasound as the information carrier. The contrast of MTAI depends on the difference in microwave absorption. In biological tissues, polar molecule such as water molecules (molecular polarization loss) and ions (ion polarization loss) are mainly used as signal sources, to obtain images of the structure and function of biological tissues. It has distinct advantages in the field of biomedical imaging and has piqued the interest of many researchers. This review discusses the principle of MTAI technology, microwave radiation module and data acquisition module and data processing module, biomedical applications of MTAI, and MTAI probes. Additionally, by combining MTAI with the current challenges, we forecast its development direction.