A preliminary study on a prostate biopsy simulation system based on images of resected prostate

摘要

This paper describes development of a simulation system for prostate biopsy based on images of resected prostates and shows quantitative evaluation of biopsy methods by using the proposed system. Prostate biopsy is one of diagnosis methods for prostate cancers. It obtains tissue samples by needle biopsy. A medical doctor diagnoses tissue specimens obtained by needle biopsy by using a microscope. To make needle biopsy reliable, it is required to evaluate the biopsy procedure systematically and quantitatively. The proposed method enables us to evaluate the prostate needle biopsy procedure by executing biopsy simulation based on 3-D prostate images resected from patients. The simulation system consists of four parts: (a) reconstruction of 3-D prostate image from resected specimens, (b) virtual biopsy, (c) quantitative evaluation, and (d) display. We applied the proposed system to nine cases of resected prostate images and 3-D prostate images created artificially from a 3-D prostate X-ray CT image with changing biopsy parameters such as the number of needles, their allocation, and angles. The experimental results show that the system can evaluate biopsy procedures quantitatively.