Automatic and high-resolution surface scan system for breast cancer treatment: clinical accuracy and usability...

Digital Twins (DTs) are virtual representations of a patient's anatomy that can revolutionize surgery guidance when paired with augmented reality. However, accurate intraoperative alignment requires high-precision surface scanning. We developed an automatic 3D surface scan system based on two RGB-D cameras for breast cancer (BC) surgery. In a clinical study involving 30 BC patients, we compared our system to a manual, high-resolution scanner. The median deviation between systems was 3.0 (IQR 2.6 to 3.6) mm. Acquisition time was 1 s, compared with 84 s for the manual scanner. Five radiology technicians highlighted our system's high performance with an excellent user experience (System Usability Scale: 92.0 ± 4.5 vs 70.5 ± 17.5) with lower perceived effort and frustration. Intraoperative surface scanning of one patient demonstrated a successful adaptation to the surgical site, supporting potential integration into BC surgical workflows.