Toward a robot-assisted breast intervention system

Minimally invasive breast biopsies have several advantages, such as low morbidity and decreased cost. However, success of these procedures is critically dependent on precise placement of the biopsy probe at the tumor location. In addition, during manual image-guided breast interventions, freehand ultrasound (US) imaging is challenging and coordinating image acquisition with probe insertion and breast stabilization simultaneously requires high level of skill. To address these problems, a novel robotic breast intervention device is presented in this paper. This system assists the clinician by: 1) ensuring accurate placement of the instrument at the tumor location and 2) autonomously acquiring real-time images of the tumor. Experimental results on breast phantoms demonstrate the efficacy of this device. This system has the potential to increase targeting accuracy while at the same time reducing the level of skill required to perform minimally invasive breast interventional procedures.