Manual palpation is an alternative breast examination technique to mammography due to the high cost of equipment and lack of trained personnel. The process involves a thorough search pattern using trained fingers and applying adequate pressure, with the objective of identifying solid masses from the surrounding breast tissue. However, palpation requires skills that must be obtained through adequate training to ensure proper diagnosis. Consequently, palpation performance and reporting techniques have been inconsistent. Automating the palpation technique would optimize the performance of self-breast examination and clinical breast examinations (CBE) and enable the visualization of breast abnormalities and assessing their mechanical properties. Various methods of reconstructing the internal mechanical properties of breast tissue abnormalities have been explored. However, all systems that have been reported are bulky and relied on complex electronic systems. Hence, they are both expensive and require trained medical professionals. The methods also do not involve palpation, a key element in CBE. This research aims in developing a portable and cheap automated palpable system that mimics CBE to quantitatively image breast lumps. The method uses a piezoresistive sensor equipped probe consisting of an electronic circuit for collecting deformation-induced electrical signals. The piezoresistive sensor is built of an exfoliated graphite solution layered on a latex sheet. Lumps are detected by monitoring a change in electrical resistance caused by the deformation of the sensor which is induced by abnormalities in the breast tissue. The electrical signals are collected using an Arduino and a pixelated image of the breast will be reconstructed.  The image is then used to qualitatively analyze the breast tissue. This project involves knowledge and applications from mechanical, electrical, computational, and materials engineering.


An Affordable and Portable Palpable System for Sensing Breast Tissue Abnormalities

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace Division

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/SMASIS/SMASIS2020/volume/84027

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