A. Okur, C. Hennersperger, J.B. Runyan, J. Gardiazabal, M. Keicher, S. Paepke, T. Wendler, N. Navab fhSPECT-US Guided Needle Biopsy of Sentinel Lymph Nodes in the Axilla: Is it Feasible? Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2014, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 8673, 2014, pp 577-584 (bib)
	Until now, core needle biopsy of the axillary sentinel lymph nodes in early stage breast cancer patients is not possible, due to the lack of a proper combination of functional and anatomical information. In this work we present the first fully 3D freehand SPECT - ultrasound fusion, combining the advantages of both modalities. By using spatial positioning either with optical or with electromagnetic tracking for the ultrasound probe, and a mini gamma camera as radiation detector for freehand SPECT reconstructions, we investigate the capability of the introduced multi-model imaging system, where we compare both 3D freehand SPECT and 3D ultrasound to ground truth for a realistic breast mimicking phantom and further analyze the effect of tissue deformation by ultrasound. Finally, we also show its application in a real clinical setting.
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