Breast Palpation Simulation with Haptic Feedback: Prototype and Initial Results

Breast palpation, when a health professional touches the breast of a patient searching for nodules is an important screening test for the breast cancer detection. This exam consists of a main means of the early detection, however, many medical professionals do not have the suitable training to do so. This stems from the fact that exam training depends on volunteers who do not represent the real situation of the disease, or models restricted to a few cases, which do not reflect the range of characteristics of the cancer training. Because of this, this procedure has a high demand for simulators that are able to provide greater realism with low cost and flexibility. This article presents the definition and implementation of a breast palpation simulator with haptic feedback. The main contribution of this paper is to evaluate the haptic feedback provided by the simulator. Evaluation results of the tool from an experiment conducted by palpation with lay users are presented. From the results obtained, it was concluded that the simulator can generate significant learning for users with no experience in the area, with satisfactory force feedback.