Towards A Robot Assisted Breast Biopsy System
Mallapragada, Vishnu Goutham
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2008-11-25
Abstract
Breast biopsy guided by imaging techniques such as ultrasound is widely used to evaluate suspicious masses within the breast. Current procedure allows the clinician to determine the location and extent of a tumor in the breast before inserting the needle. However, there are several problems with this procedure: complex interaction dynamics between needle and the breast tissue will likely displace the tumor from its original position necessitating multiple insertions, causing clinicians’ fatigue, patient’s discomfort, and compromising integrity of the tissue specimen. In this work, a novel robotic breast biopsy system is developed to address these problems. The robotic system consists of three major components: 1) A set of robotic fingers that manipulate the position of a tumor (by applying external force on the breast) based on ultrasound image feedback to improve targeting accuracy; 2) An autonomous ultrasound image acquisition device that can track the 3D coordinates of the tumor; 3) A hybrid supervisory controller that coordinates tumor manipulation (with robotic fingers), image acquisition and needle insertion. The robotic system can provide comprehensive assistance during breast biopsy so that the clinician can solely focus on the detection, decision making, and collection of the tissue sample without being encumbered by the difficulty of the procedure. Several safety features such as passivity based control for tumor manipulation, sensor signal monitoring and emergency deactivation are incorporated in the system to minimize hazards. Experiments on phantoms indicate an average targeting accuracy of 0.17 mm for thirteen trials. This system has the potential to reduce the number of attempts a surgeon makes to capture the desired tissue specimen, minimize tissue damage, improve speed of biopsy, reduce patient discomfort and enhance diagnostic outcome by reducing false negative rate.