Development of a new instrument for examination of stiffness in the breast using haptic sensor technology

Detection of breast cancer and regular monitoring of the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy are important issues for large numbers of women. To address these needs, we developed a new instrument for examination of stiffness of the breast using haptic sensor technology. The instrument consists of a 64-element tactile sensor array designed to visualize haptic information within the breast. It was demonstrated in both basic and clinical studies that the hardness of breast cancer lesions larger than 10 mm located at depths less than 20 mm could be detected using this novel haptic probe. We expect that the proposed instrument will be useful for the detection and follow-up of treatment and to predict the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.