In breast screening suspicious lesions might be discovered that need to be analysed for their severity. A biopsy is performed to extract tissue or sample cells from the lesion usually under the guidance of Ultrasound Imaging. It might happen that some lesion might be undetected using Ultrasound Imaging, then the doctor might resort to a biopsy under Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) guidance.
The first step of the current MRI-guided biopsy is to scan the breast of the patient and map the lesions. The patient then moves out of the scanner after which the biopsy is performed. At last, the breast of the patient is then scanned again to evaluate whether the tip of the needle indeed coincided with the lesion. A major downsides to this method is that that the breast might deform due to various loading conditions after getting out of the scanner. This might produce a slight change in the position of the lesion, increasing the chance of false positives during biopsies.
There is need for a method that tracks the deformation of the breast and updates the location of the lesions. The main focus of this project is to develop software able to track the deformations and provide a visual aide for the doctor. Markers are placed on the skin of the patient visible in the MR images to create a model of the breast. The markers will then be tracked optically using a OptiTrack setup and combined with preoperative data to obtain a model of the breast with a better lesion location accuracy. The lesion can then be biopted using a hand-mounted motorized needle angulation tool.