Research

Non-rigid registration of breast surfaces using the laplace and diffusion equations

Rowena E Ong , Jao J Ou and Michael I Miga

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

author email corresponding author email

BioMedical Engineering OnLine 2010, 9:8doi:10.1186/1475-925X-9-8

Published:	12 February 2010

Abstract

A semi-automated, non-rigid breast surface registration method is presented that involves solving the Laplace or diffusion equations over undeformed and deformed breast surfaces. The resulting potential energy fields and isocontours are used to establish surface correspondence. This novel surface-based method, which does not require intensity images, anatomical landmarks, or fiducials, is compared to a gold standard of thin-plate spline (TPS) interpolation. Realistic finite element simulations of breast compression and further testing against a tissue-mimicking phantom demonstrate that this method is capable of registering surfaces experiencing 6 - 36 mm compression to within a mean error of 0.5 - 5.7 mm.