Haptically Assisting Breast Tumor Detection by Augmenting Abnormal Lump

Abstract

This paper reports the use of haptic augmented reality in breast tumor palpation. In general, lumps in the breast are stiffer than surrounding tissues, allowing us to haptically detect them through self-palpation. The goal of the study is to assist self-palpation of lumps by haptically augmenting stiffness around lumps. The key steps are to estimate non-linear stiffness of normal tissues in the offline preprocessing step, detect areas that show abnormally stiffer responses, and amplify the difference in stiffness through a haptic augmented reality interface. The performance of the system was evaluated in a user-study, demonstrating the potential of the system.