Needle path planning for digital breast tomosynthesis biopsy

This paper presents a new needle path planning method for digital breast tomosynthesis biopsy. Needle insertion planning into deformable tissue for breast biopsy procedure is a challenging task because of the infinite possibilities of insertion points. In addition, the lesion moves from its original position when the radiologist introduces the biopsy needle. The proposed approach couples Rapidly-exploring Random Trees with Finite Element Simulation in order to find an optimal path taking breast deformations into account. Simulation results show that this method reduces the error (i.e. the distance between the needle tip and the lesion) by 80%.