Augmented reality mastectomy surgical planning prototype using the HoloLens template for healthcare technology letters

Abstract

In breast reconstruction following a single mastectomy, the surgeon needs to choose between tens of available implants to find the one that can reproduce the symmetry of the patient’s breasts. However, due to the lack of measurement tools this decision is made purely visually, which means the surgeon has to order multiple implants to confirm the size for every single patient. In this Letter, the authors present an augmented reality application, which enables surgeons to see the shape of the implants, as 3D holograms on the patient’s body. They custom developed a two-chamber implant that can gain different shapes and be used to test the system. Furthermore, the system was tested in a user study with 13 subjects. The study showed that subjects were able to do a comparison between real and holographic implants and come to a decision about which should be used. This method can be quicker than the traditional way and eliminates sizer implants from the process. Further advantages of the method include the use of a more accurate, user-friendly device, which is easily extendable as new implants that are on the market can be easily added to the system dataset.