Autonomous coordination of imaging and tumor manipulation for robot assisted breast biopsy

Abstract

Breast biopsy guided by imaging techniques such as ultrasound is widely used to evaluate suspicious masses within the breast. During percutaneous needle biopsy, large tissue deformation will likely displace the tumor from its original position necessitating multiple insertions, causing surgeonspsila fatigue, patientpsilas discomfort, and compromising integrity of the tissue specimen. Tumor mobility also poses significant difficulty in imaging the target and the needle using an ultrasound probe. In addition, simultaneous coordination of freehand ultrasound imaging, needle insertion, target localization and breast stabilization is a challenging task for the surgeon. In this work, we present a new concept for coordinated real-time tumor manipulation and ultrasound imaging using a hybrid control architecture. The idea here is to demonstrate that it is possible to (1) manipulate a tumor in real-time by applying controlled external force (2) control the position of the ultrasound probe for tracking out-of-plane target movement and maintaining surface contact (3) coordinate the above systems in an autonomous manner such that the tumor does not deviate from the path of the needle. Experiments are performed on phantoms to demonstrate essence of this technique. The success of this approach has the potential to reduce the number of attempts a surgeon makes to capture the desired tissue specimen, minimize tissue damage, improve speed of biopsy, and reduce patient discomfort.