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Visual Breast Asymmetry Assessment with Optical-Flow Algorithm
Javier Monton1,2,3, Nitzan Kenig4, Ricardo Insausti5
1Plastic Surgery Department, Albacete University Hospital, Castilla-La Mancha Health Service (SESCAM), Albacete, Spain. Javier.Monton@uclm.es.
Journal of Medical Systems
|August 3, 2020
Summary
A new system, VIBA© (VIsual Breast Asymmetry), uses Optical Flow to objectively assess breast symmetry after surgery. It shows high agreement with existing methods, offering a valuable tool for cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgery evaluation.
Area of Science:
- Plastic Surgery
- Medical Imaging
- Computer Vision
Background:
- Assessing breast surgery outcomes is challenging due to subjective evaluation methods.
- Objective computer systems like BCCT®, OBCS®, and GBAI© have been developed for breast asymmetry assessment.
- There is a need for reliable and objective tools to evaluate breast symmetry in both aesthetic and reconstructive surgery.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and validate a novel objective system, VIBA© (VIsual Breast Asymmetry), for breast symmetry assessment.
- To compare the performance of the VIBA© Optical Flow (OF) score with the established Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale (OBCS®).
- To evaluate VIBA© as a tool for pre- and post-operative breast evaluation in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery.
Main Methods:
- Developed VIBA-Calc© software using MATLAB, implementing an Optical Flow algorithm.
- Collected and analyzed 100 frontal photographs of patients who underwent aesthetic breast surgery.
- Compared VIBA© OF scores with OBCS® classifications for symmetry and asymmetry.
- Calculated concordance using Cohen's kappa coefficient for preoperative and postoperative cases.
Main Results:
- VIBA© objectively classifies breast symmetry with a numerical score and color map of asymmetric regions.
- Classification agreement between VIBA© and OBCS® was almost perfect for postoperative cases (k=0.84) and substantial for preoperative cases (k=0.76).
- The overall global Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.80, indicating strong agreement between the two systems.
Conclusions:
- VIBA© is a validated, objective tool for evaluating breast symmetry in aesthetic and reconstructive surgery.
- The system demonstrates high concordance with the established OBCS® scoring system.
- VIBA© offers a reliable method for both pre- and post-operative breast assessment, improving objective outcome evaluation.
