Breast Compression Simulation Using ICP-Based B-Spline Deformation for Correspondence Analysis in Mammography and MRI Datasets

Mammography is the most commonly used imaging modality in breast cancer screening and diagnosis. The analysis of 2D mammographic images can be difficult due to the projective nature of the imaging technique and poor contrast between tumorous and healthy fibro-glandular tissue. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can overcome these disadvantages by providing a 3D dataset of the breast. The detection of corresponding image structures is challenging due to large breast deformations during the image acquisition. We present a method for analyzing 2D/3D intra-individual correspondences between mammography and MRI datasets. Therefore, an ICP-based B-spline registration is used to approximate the breast deformation differences. The resulting deformed MR image is projected onto the 2D plane to enable a comparison with the 2D mammogram. A first evaluation based on six mammograms revealed an average accuracy of 4.87 mm. In contrast to previous FEM-based approaches, we propose a fast and easy to implement 3D/3D-registration, for simulating the mammographic breast compression.