Out-Bore MRI-Guided Breast Biopsy Employing Machine Vision and Augmented Reality Techniques: Preliminary Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Surgical Navigation
• Biotechnology

Background:

• Breast MRI offers high accuracy for cancer detection.
• Current in-bore MRI-guided biopsy is limited to specific patients.
• Expanding access to MRI-guided biopsy is crucial for early breast cancer detection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel out-bore MRI-guided breast biopsy system.
• To improve accessibility and applicability of MRI-guided breast biopsy procedures.
• To enhance breast cancer diagnosis through advanced imaging and navigation.

Main Methods:

• Developed an out-bore system integrating real-time needle pose tracking, head-mounted display (HMD) integration, and real-time breast shape sensing with deformable registration.
• Implemented augmented reality (AR)-assisted visualization for MRI targets and navigation.
• Conducted experiments to assess targeting accuracy, deformable registration update rate, and AR visualization refresh rate/latency.

Main Results:

• Achieved a mean targeting accuracy of 4.55 ± 1.11mm.
• Demonstrated an average deformable registration update rate of 42.76 ± 13.96ms.
• Recorded AR visualization data refresh rate of 59 ± 23fps and latency of 192 ± 73ms.

Conclusions:

• The novel out-bore MRI-guided breast biopsy system shows significant potential for successful clinical application.
• This technology enhances accessibility to MRI-guided biopsy, potentially increasing breast cancer detection rates.
• The system's performance metrics support its feasibility for improving patient care in breast diagnostics.