Breast surface reconstruction utilising autonomous robotic assisted ultrasound image acquisition

One in eight females will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, making it the most diagnosed cancer globally [1]. Three phases are essential for the outcome of breast cancer; early detection, accurate diag- nosis and treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has proven to be highly sensitive in detecting possible tu- mors lesions compared to other image modalities. How- ever, ultrasound (US) guided biopsies are the standard and biopsies on MRI detected lesions is challenging, because these lesions may not be visible on US images. Registration of pre-operative MRI with the intra- operative US combines the benefits of both imaging modalities and subsequently improve tumor localisation. Therefore, this work presents an US image-based sur- face reconstruction based on autonomous acquired US images to increase the accuracy of MRI/US registration. Thereby the proposed work eliminates the need for inter- sensor calibration as would be needed if stereo camera- based, depth camera-based or marker-based breast sur- face reconstruction would be used.