Real-time Breast Cancer Surgery Navigation

每8名妇女中就有1人罹患乳腺癌，是女性癌症相关死亡的第二大原因。理想的治疗方法是在早期进行保乳手术，在保留乳房健康部分的同时切除肿瘤。当在切除组织的边缘发现癌细胞时，复发的可能性非常高，患者必须再次手术。平均而言，每三到四名接受保乳手术的女性中，就有一人因切除边缘发现肿瘤细胞而至少需要再做一次手术。重复手术会增加术后并发症、美容受损、延迟放射治疗、增加心理困扰、增加费用以及进行第二次全身麻醉的风险。重复手术通常会导致全乳切除术，这对希望通过保乳治疗治愈的患者来说是一次创伤性的经历。通过开发一种新型的实时电磁导航系统，我们打算提高乳腺癌切除术的准确性，这将大大减少重复手术的次数，从而大大提高患者的生活质量，并大大降低医疗保健费用。

Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women during their lives and is the second-leading cause offemale cancer related deaths. The ideal treatment is breast-conservation surgery during itsearly stage to remove the cancer while conserving healthy parts of the breast.When cancer cells are found on the edge of the resected tissue, the probability of recurrenceis extremely high and the patient must have repeat surgery. On average, one out of everythree or four women undergoing breast-conservation surgery needs at least one additionalsurgery due to tumor cells found on the resection margins. Repeat surgery leads to increasedrisk of postoperative complications, impaired cosmesis, delaying radiation therapy, increasedpsychological distress, increased costs, and risks of undergoing a second generalanesthesia. Repeat surgery often leads to full mastectomy, which is a traumatic experiencefor a patient who expected a curative treatment with breast-conservation.Through development of a novel real-time electromagnetic navigation system, we intend toimprove the accuracy of breast cancer resection, which would lead to a significant reductionin the number of repeat surgeries, thus yielding major quality of life benefits for patients andmuch decreased costs for health care.