Inferior Breast-Chest Contour Detection in 3-D Images of the Female Torso

• Published in: IEEE journal of translational engineering in health and medicine Vol. 4; pp. 1 - 10
• Main Authors: Zhao, Lijuan, Cheong, Audrey, Reece, Gregory P., Fingeret, Michelle C., Shah, Shishir K., Merchant, Fatima A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.01.2016
• Subjects: 3D breast image; Breast; breast contour detection; Breast morphology; curvature analysis; Indexes; lowest visible point; Shape; Surgery; Three-dimensional displays; Torso; Two dimensional displays; curvature analysis; lowest visible point; breast contour detection; Breast morphology; 3D breast image
• ISSN: 2168-2372; 2168-2372
• DOI: 10.1109/JTEHM.2016.2614518

Stereophotogrammetry is finding increased use in clinical breast surgery, both for breast reconstruction after oncological procedures and cosmetic augmentation and reduction. The ability to visualize and quantify morphological features of the breast facilitates pre-operative planning and post-operative outcome assessment. The contour outlining the lower half of the breast is important for the quantitative assessment of breast aesthetics. Based on this inferior breast contour, relevant morphological measures, such as breast symmetry, volume, and ptosis, can be determined. In this paper, we present an approach for automatically detecting the inferior contour of the breast in 3D images. Our approach employs surface curvature analysis and is able to detect the breast contour with high accuracy, achieving an average error of 1.64 mm and a dice coefficient in the range of 0.72-0.87 when compared with the manually annotated contour (ground truth). In addition, the detected contour is used to facilitate the detection of the lowest visible point on the breast, which is an important landmark for breast morphometric analysis.