Prof. Stéphane Bordas from the University of Luxembourg together with postdoctoral researcher Dr. Arnaud Mazier from the University of Sidney have recently published their paper entitled:” Breast simulation pipeline: from medical imaging to patient-specific simulations” in the Clinical Biomechanics journal.
Funded by the doctoral training network “Rapid Biomechanics Simulation for Personalized Clinical Design” (RAINBOW), researchers Stéphane Bordas and Arnaud Mazier have developed a new way to make breast surgery more precise and personalised. They tackled a common problem: when doctors take a scan before surgery, the breast can move a lot between the scan and the actual operation. This new method helps predict these movements, making surgery more effective.
“Think of it like a GPS for surgeons, it helps them navigate and operate with more accuracy. We used a computer programme to create a personalised plan for each patient. We tested it and found it was really accurate, almost like having a personalised map for each surgery. For instance, we discovered that a part of the breast called the infra-mammary ligament, really matter in the surgery plan. This is a big step forward in making breast surgery more precise and tailored to each patient”, explains Prof. Bordas from the Department of Engineering at the University of Luxembourg.
About RAINBOW
Launched in 2018 as a four-year project, the RAINBOW network involved 7 universities, 1 hospital, and 7 industrial partners across Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, England, France, and Germany to train 15 PhD fellows in scientific skills and transferable skills, enabling them to take up careers in the academic as well as in the non-academic sectors. The objective was to realise the full potential of computational medicine and ICT to arrive at patient-specific simulation models that are rapidly set for a particular patient, are easy-to-use by clinical experts and do not require assistance from a technical team.
The project was a significant step forward in personalised breast surgery.
Paper: “Breast simulation pipeline: From medical imaging to patient-specific simulations“, November 2023, Clinical Biomechanics