Breast cancer is the world's second-most diagnosed type of cancer. To analyze cancer cells, biopsies have been performed a lot in the last decades by biopsy specialists using manual biopsy needles. Nowadays more and more research is performed about (semi-) automatic biopsy robotics. Besides all advantages, the major drawback for this is, that the control has been taken away from the biopsy specialist and replaced by a computer algorithm.
Instead of directly making the full step to automated biopsy robotics, a smaller step can also be beneficial. For a biopsy specialist, it could be very intuitive to have a concrete device in hand which motions are followed by a biopsy robot. A specialist’s physical presence is not required anymore during a biopsy. There are already existing operation surgery robots, but such devices are very expensive. Therefore, the search for a cheaper alternative will be a step ahead. The limitation for making a cheaper alternative is that it should meet the high medical standards nowadays. Out of this, the question raises; How can a mobile device be used together with a biopsy robot to perform a biopsy, which is safe, low cost and accurate enough?
This research question brings some specifications. In the first place, the combination of robot and control should be safe and therefore should contain safety features. Implementing wireless communication may lead to time delays. Those delays should in no-sense hinder the radiologist performing a biopsy. Fast responses, on the other hand, bring more shocking and abrupt movements, which are also not desirable. Finally, the accuracy should be good enough to still be able to hit the tumour in the first place.
The project aims to use a mobile phone as a concrete instrument for the biopsy specialist. A mobile phone consists of a lot of sensors, such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. The project aims to extract the current position configuration of the mobile phone from those sensors using a designed app. The application can easily be connected to a microcontroller, which reflects the phone's position to the needle position. No biopsy robot is present which fits the requirements above. The project, therefore, aims to design a 3D printed 3-DOF biopsy robot, which takes medical standards in consideration and approaches the functionalities of other biopsy robots.
The system will be evaluated by targeting several lesions inside a transparent phantom under visual guidance.