Flexible ultrasonic array for breast-cancer diagnosis based on a self-shape-estimation algorithm

Breast cancer is a very common malignant tumour that typically occurs in women aged 35-70 years (accounting for 85% of patients). Recently, it has been appearing in younger women as well. Traditional ultrasonic transducers usually use a fixed array, which avoids the radiation from mammography, has a low cost, and can be used for repeated testing. This substantially benefits the clinical diagnosis of breast cancer. However, the fixed transducer-array diagnosis process exerts considerable pressure on the human body, which can easily cause mass displacement or unnecessary pain. Therefore, ultrasound breast cancer diagnosis without compression has attracted attention. In this study, we used a flexible ultrasonic array to record the ultrasound information of the mass, and proposed a mathematical model suitable for breast-cancer diagnosis. Then, we used a self-shape-estimation algorithm to obtain a two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound image of the breast cancer. The algorithm was tested with simulated and experimental array data, and its performance was evaluated according to the tumour location. The surface-shape error obtained through the numerical simulation was less than 0.8 mm, and the deviation in the estimated mass position was less than 1.24 mm. The tumour location was also obtained experimentally in a breast-cancer model. Therefore, the method proposed in this paper can realize ultrasound diagnoses and represents a new diagnostic tool for breast cancer.